Egodeath Yahoo Group – Digest 107 (2011-10-28)

Group: egodeath	Message: 5425	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 28/10/2011
Subject: Metaphor: Fastened/stuck to a tree

Group: egodeath	Message: 5426	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 28/10/2011
Subject: Re: ‘Necessity’; translating state-reductionist to valid ASC stateme

Group: egodeath	Message: 5427	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 28/10/2011
Subject: Mytheme: ‘Statues moving’

Group: egodeath	Message: 5429	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Irrelevance of ordinary-state “Religion vs. Atheism” debate

Group: egodeath	Message: 5430	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

Group: egodeath	Message: 5431	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

Group: egodeath	Message: 5432	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

Group: egodeath	Message: 5433	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

Group: egodeath	Message: 5434	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

Group: egodeath	Message: 5435	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

Group: egodeath	Message: 5436	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

Group: egodeath	Message: 5437	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

Group: egodeath	Message: 5438	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Peyote from Texas cave carbon-dated to 5000 BC

Group: egodeath	Message: 5439	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

Group: egodeath	Message: 5440	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

Group: egodeath	Message: 5441	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

Group: egodeath	Message: 5442	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: The Entheogenic Apocalypse

Group: egodeath	Message: 5443	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: Ivy, vine, serpent/snake, crown of thorns

Group: egodeath	Message: 5444	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: Bk: Ruck: Hidden World: Survival Pagan Shamanic in Fairytales

Group: egodeath	Message: 5445	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Apples of Apollo: Pagan/Christian Mysteries/Eucharist (Ruck et al)

Group: egodeath	Message: 5446	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: How old is the Entheogen Theory of Religion?

Group: egodeath	Message: 5447	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: How old is the Entheogen Theory of Religion?

Group: egodeath	Message: 5448	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: How old is the Entheogen Theory of Religion?

Group: egodeath	Message: 5449	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: How old is the Entheogen Theory of Religion?

Group: egodeath	Message: 5450	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: How old is the Entheogen Theory of Religion?

Group: egodeath	Message: 5451	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: How old is the Entheogen Theory of Religion?

Group: egodeath	Message: 5452	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: How old is the Entheogen Theory of Religion?

Group: egodeath	Message: 5453	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

Group: egodeath	Message: 5454	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Some Christians support entheogen theory and ahistoricity

Group: egodeath	Message: 5455	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: Graves-Wasson enth theory 1960, Hall 1925, S. 1845

Group: egodeath	Message: 5456	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: The Entheogenic Apocalypse

Group: egodeath	Message: 5457	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Moderate Entheogen Theory harmful, complicit in Prohibition

Group: egodeath	Message: 5458	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Allegro Prohibition-friendly; harmful strategy: slandering Christian

Group: egodeath	Message: 5459	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: How old is the Entheogen Theory of Religion?

Group: egodeath	Message: 5460	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Others’ summaries of my Egodeath theory

Group: egodeath	Message: 5461	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: Others’ summaries of my Egodeath theory

Group: egodeath	Message: 5462	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: Bk: Pharmakon: Plato, Drug Culture Ancient Athens – Rinella

Group: egodeath	Message: 5463	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

Group: egodeath	Message: 5464	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 31/10/2011
Subject: Re: The Holy Grail found — Amanita mushroom photos

Group: egodeath	Message: 5465	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 31/10/2011
Subject: Non-theories of religion/religious/mystic experiencing

Group: egodeath	Message: 5466	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 31/10/2011
Subject: Re: Non-theories of religion/religious/mystic experiencing

Group: egodeath	Message: 5468	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 31/10/2011
Subject: Re: The Holy Grail found — Amanita mushroom photos

Group: egodeath	Message: 5469	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 31/10/2011
Subject: Mytheme: Chariot steersman

Group: egodeath	Message: 5470	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 31/10/2011
Subject: Re: Bk: Pharmakon: Plato, Drug Culture Ancient Athens – Rinella

Group: egodeath	Message: 5471	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 31/10/2011
Subject: Re: Bk: Pharmakon: Plato, Drug Culture Ancient Athens – Rinella

Group: egodeath	Message: 5472	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 31/10/2011
Subject: Re: Books by Edwin Johnson

Group: egodeath	Message: 5473	From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com	Date: 01/11/2011
Subject: File – EgodeathGroupCharter.txt

Group: egodeath	Message: 5474	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 02/11/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

Group: egodeath	Message: 5475	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 03/11/2011
Subject: Unsatisfying secondary explanations

Group: egodeath	Message: 5476	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 03/11/2011
Subject: Visionary phenomenology vs. visionary plants

Group: egodeath	Message: 5425	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 28/10/2011
Subject: Metaphor: Fastened/stuck to a tree

Interpretation Principle: myth is metaphorical description of what you intensely experience in the intense mystic altered state.

Mytheme: Fastened/stuck to a tree
Applying the interpretation principle:
How is {what you intensely experience in the intense mystic altered state} like {being fastened/stuck to a tree}?

Express personally, establishing the situational context and the focusing in on the heart of the mytheme:
"I was tripping hard (after four cups of psilocybe mushroom-infused wine during the Christian Eucharistic banquet) and I felt like I was [eternally] fastened or stuck to a tree." What does that mean?
"In the intense loosecog state, I intensely felt like I was fastened to a tree."
"(In loosecog,) I felt like I was fastened to a tree."
"I felt like I was fastened to a tree." What does that mean?

The feeling like being fastened to a tree in the intense altered state means spacetime unity consciousness experiencing. The sense of separate self — an autonomous control-power agent moving through time while one is separate from time, and moving through space while separate from space — is suspended, relaxed, or dissolved.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5426	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 28/10/2011
Subject: Re: ‘Necessity’; translating state-reductionist to valid ASC stateme

Clarification: I wrote the following, which should be moved outside the Excerpts section:

That is: one gate (controlled by the divine transcendent control-power) leads to falling back into reincarnation into delusion, the other gate leads to the Route to the Gods, which leads you out of the Circle of Necessity.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5427	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 28/10/2011
Subject: Mytheme: ‘Statues moving’

I'm a believer, I ain't no deceiver
Mountains move before my eyes
Destiny planned out, I don't need no handout
Speculation of the wise.

— Bob Daisley, "Believer"

Entheogenic mixed wine in Antiquity produced the perceptual experience of the statues moving, due to visual distortion, waving, shifting, statues waving; a divine wind's breeze blowing and causing billowing visual effects; depicted as an unfurled, billowing, waving cape like a sail, that is moving, outside and behind one's head.

This effect — visual distortion, induced by acid — was also used to animate the detailed organic artwork of rocks and water on the 12" album Caress of Steel by Rush. My scan of my copy:
http://www.egodeath.com/images/caressbkcover.jpg
It's animated by wearing the glasses. Actually it would be possible to run this through a filter to make it wave and wriggle in serpentine fashion, like the cliche reported perception that "the walls are melting".

Group: egodeath	Message: 5429	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Irrelevance of ordinary-state “Religion vs. Atheism” debate

Two kinds of books are a waste of time to read:

o Religion books that are obliviously unaware of altered-state mystic experiencing

o Atheism books that are obliviously unaware of altered-state mystic experiencing

The mystic altered state is entheogen-induced loose mental construct association binding; loose cognitive binding; the loosecog state; loosecog.

For a debate that is worth paying any attention to on either side, we must first have Religion books that are well-informed about the mystic altered state, which is the entheogen-induced loose cognitive binding state; and Atheism books that are well-informed about the mystic altered state, which is the entheogen-induced loose cognitive binding state.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5430	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

To forcefully shake off our Prohibitionist hypnosis, and our brainwashing from outsider religion that's ordinary-state-based and woefully ignorant of the mystic altered state as the basis of religion — to break out of the current dead-wrong notions, and reach the truth and write and think from an activist intellectual foundation that is solidly within the truth — we must overshoot.

To help us overshoot, we must invert the current insane and godless persecution (which is conducted in the guise of public health and a bogus picture of traditional religion) of visionary plant users, or users of enlightenment-inducing therefore Sacred chemicals.

The current insanity, which is a phony "gateway drug as plague" model, and a totally false and incorrect supposition that "traditional religion and traditional mysticism is non-entheogen-caused", would produce a position that is very close to the truth, if today's false views were inverted.

By inverting the Late Modern, late 20th Century notions of public health and religion in regard to psychoactive plants and chemicals and religious history regarding these or rather the supposed lack of them, or the supposedly rare and fringe use of them, we arrive at a social and religious policy position that is close to what it truly ought to be, and must be, to cause and ensure the spread of entheogen-based access to religion and ego-transcending enlightenment.

The fictional Paul character originally rode on a path to persecute the Christians, and then had a vision of the truth of the matter, and instead set upon advocating Christianity, and how (this is my original research findings and discovery) that is isomorphic with how the seer Balaam rode his donkey on a narrow path along a vineyard (= psilocybe etc. infused mixed wine) and encountered God's Angel of Death and then announced "everything that I speak is [actually] given to me by God [not by myself as egoic originator of my thoughts]", and then switched sides and blessed the Jews instead of cursing them as he was hired by the ungodly ruler to do.

Analogy:

The rulers who hired Balaam to curse the Jews, and the Jewish rulers (who were puppets of the Roman rulers) who had Paul go to persecute the Christians
— are like —
The late 20th Century (to present) Prohibition-for-profit posers — the leaders of drug Prohibition — and today's complicit religion advocates (such as Gnosis magazine) who strive under the false presupposition that Traditional religion is not entheogen-based

The Jews who are being persecuted by the godless rulers who hired the seer Balaam to curse them, and the Christians who are initially persecuted by Paul the Apostle (as Saul the non-apostle)
— are like —
Drug users under the conditions of Prohibition in the late 20th Century

Here is what it looks like to masterfully and directly invert the Late 20th Century false notion of public health and revered traditional religion, regarding visionary substances. The following, I am asserting as the enlightened truth, with enforcement that is overdone and exaggerated in exactly the very same manner as we have become accustomed to under the current reign of anti-entheogenic delusion and false notions about what constitutes health and religion.

The below is a combination of enlightening explanation about the real nature of initiation, tradition, history of entheogen use, and Esotericism, Western Esotericism, and the Perennial Philosophy, with — attached to it — the same kind of persecutive exaggerated zeal as currently thrives in our deluded, anti-entheogenic society.

__________________________

All mysticism achieved without entheogens is illegitimate, phony, ersatz, non-traditional, and heretical. Anyone who ever achieves mystic-state experiencing without entheogens should be crucified, and burned to death, and jailed for eternity, flayed, sent to Hell for eternal punishment, demonized.

That is, instead of demonizing and persecuting drug users, who access the mystic state through drugs as society currently does, we should instead demonize and persecute those who access the mystic state through methods other than drugs. It is unreasonable to demonize and persecute drug users, as we currently do. Instead, we ought to demonize and persecute non-drug users.

The gateway theory is backwards. The gateway theory today holds that Cannabis use directly causes a plague of addiction to Heroin, which for some mysterious reason, is dirty and is cut with additional toxic fillers, and which (for some reason impenetrable) is inherently associated with the criminal element. If a single person ingests a single dose of Cannabis, the result is that an entire community becomes wretched addicts to dirty Heroin and then they overdose and die.

The true gateway theory is this: lack of drug-based religion — being religious without going through the inherently entheogenic Eucharist — causes a plague of allowing and condoning egoic delusion, a plague of failing to puncture and expose the egoic delusion as essentially an illusion. To ensure the spread of religious enlightenment, to ensure the spread of egodeath, which is traditionally and orthodoxly caused by ingesting entheogens, we must ban, prohibit, and anathematize so-called "religious" practice that fails or refuses to use entheogens.

To stop the current plague of failure to access entheogenic Eucharist-based egodeath, we must demonize, prohibit, ban, and persecute those who practice religion without going through the one effective and Holy and Traditional gateway, which is Entheogens.

If even a single person practices "religion" (as they mis-call it) without using the Traditional and only effective method that God has given us — the entheogenic Eucharist — that is a noxious gateway for that person to become infected by the continuance of demonic, egoic delusion, and that person will then infect the entire community with such a godless, false, "religion", which is but the religion of demons — demonic pseudo-religion.

To stop the present plague of demonic pseudo-religion, which is the attempted religious practice that lacks the entheogenic Eucharist, we must attack the gateway to such demonic substitute pseudo-religion. to close the gateway to a plague of egoic delusion and its wide-ranging harmful effects on society and culture, any would-be mystic who attempts to have a religious experiencing without the use of the entheogenic Eucharist must be demonized (for they are, by definition, demonic, and worshippers of the Devil, in that they mistake their non-initiated feeling of wielding autonomous control power as if it is a real and substantial reality) and persecuted.

We must begin a witch-hunt of the *real* witches, who are those who advocate non-entheogenic religious practice and thus who are sustaining the reign and plague of egoic delusion. For the transcendent, mystically enlightened health of the society, our culture, and our world, we must hunt down, and crucify, and burn alive, as enemies of all that is healthy, good, and reverent to God, anyone who refuses the entheogenic Eucharist.

That is, we've become accustomed to persecuting the wrong party — those who use visionary plants and chemicals — and have mistakenly supported the guilty party — those who don't use visionary plants and chemicals.

The original sin is the youthful egoic mind, which has not yet been initiated some 9 times into the true, Traditional, Orthodox entheogenic Eucharist.

We must require — in order to have a God-fearing, respectful, enlightened society — that everyone who is of age, between puberty and young adulthood, during the years 13 through 21 — be initiated into the traditional, entheogenic Eucharist, together with study of the perennial philosophy, Neoplatonism, and Christian Theology as well as religious tradition from our society's long history of using entheogens and describing their revelations in metaphoric figuration such as descent to Hell for purification and then a lasting ascent into Heaven.

__________________________

The above masterful inversion of today's false situation, well-informed in mystic enlightenment and mythemes, is highly fruitful and fecund.

It is vastly closer to the truth than today's situation, where drugs are falsely assumed to not be the main traditional means of inducing mystic experiencing, and where drug users are persecuted, punished, robbed of their possessions by evil, phony, self-serving Prohibitionists (who often are drug users themselves, of the same type of [wrongly illegal] drugs — as one example of many, the prosecutor of Paris Hilton), and literally put to death around the world.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5431	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

Clarification: comma added after 'drugs':
That is, instead of demonizing and persecuting drug users, who access the mystic state through drugs, as society currently does, we should instead demonize and
persecute those who access the mystic state through methods other than drugs.

Clarification: added (wrongly supposed) and quotation marks:
Here is what it looks like to masterfully and directly invert the Late 20th Century false notion of public health and revered (wrongly supposed) "traditional" religion, regarding visionary substances.

We must be forcefully guarded whenever using the word 'traditional' or 'dominant' or 'orthodox' because what is at issue is precisely which practice is *actually* traditional, historically dominant, and historically orthodox in the actual views of everyone and in the actual practice of religion by everyone.

According to Prohibitionists and religionists who are woefully oblivious, obtuse, uneducated, ignorant ignoramuses about the overwhelmingly heavy use of visionary plants throughout all of religious history, traditional religion isn't entheogen-induced.

But we must always, every time we use these heavily charged words, hasten to remember and loudly point out that according to enlightened, informed people — commentators and practitioners — traditional religion is emphatically and pointedly entheogen-induced; entheogen use *is* traditional religion; traditional religion is precisely and specifically the use of visionary plants.

There are thus two warring definitions of the word 'traditional'. Gnosis magazine — the main, authoritative voice and collection of voices about Western Esotericism — clearly sides with the Prohibitionists and the false religionists. The all-too-familiar, false assertion and careless assumption that religion is traditionally non-entheogenic has always been a covert, by-the-way, taken-for-granted type of assertion, an carelessly un-considered presupposition, rather than a scientific, careful raising and treatment of the question of *whether* traditional religion is entheogen based or not.

By the right definition of these terms, traditional, orthodox, dominant religion is entheogen religion.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5432	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

You must hit your head to knock sense into yourself, do like the wussified RoboCop did in the movie, reach into the High Voltage electrical box in order to wipe out your ineffective, bogus programming.

Do what I was strategically meaning to do in offending my usual sense of self and My values, when — when Dionysus took over my mind and personality to set me straight at the Level 5 gate — I used a "shock the bourgeoisie" pranking of my usual self: I pseudo-insanely scrambled my room, acted as if crazily disorganize, visually represented the breakage of my usual highly controlled (but "stuck in delusion") self-manner.

How can we shock ourselves into awakeness, how can we take the red pill (per the Matrix movie) to smash through and penetrate the veil (step through the mirror [per Matrix]) of our hypnosis and brainwashing? Invert the current dogma and assumptions.

Shock some sense into yourself, break out of your hypnotic brainwashed state, do a self-intervention by reading Wasson in the book SOMA, pp. 328-334, regarding Eliade, summarized in my Wasson article, copied below. Clearly grasp the ramifications of how Eliade totally misread shamanism tradition as *not* being entheogen based; Wasson points out that Eliade was *dead wrong* in portraying "traditional" shamanism as not being entheogen based.

Then apply the amazing lesson of that treatment of Eliade, against Wasson's own presupposition — how could Wasson have missed this, his own "Death Star vulnerability"?! Wasson's argument against Eliade can (obviously!) be used against Wasson's own dead-wrong assumption — kept carefully implicit, covert, and suppressed and taken for granted — that JudeoChristianity is traditionally non-entheogenic.

Wasson's obtuse assumption about Christianity is exactly isomorphic to Eliade's obtuseness (that Wasson well points out) about traditional shamanism's use or non-use of visionary plants.

Wasson points out Eliade's idiot and dead-wrong assumption of "traditional=non-entheogenic" in shamanism, yet Wasson either hides or fails to see that this excellent expose of Eliade's intellectually careless and sloppy presupposition about shamanism applies, by the exact same reasoning, to the question — which Wasson avoids, or doesn't think to raise, or suppresses under orders of the Pope — of whether we can simply take it for granted that Christianity isn't entheogen-based.

_______________________

From my 2006 article "Wasson and Allegro on the Tree of Knowledge as Amanita"
http://egodeath.com/WassonEdenTree.htm

Critical Asymmetry in Affirming versus Denying Entheogens in Religions

Wasson applies critical argumentation well, when it comes to the subject of shamanism. Mircea Eliade asserted that the use of drug-plants by shamans is:

"a decadence among the shamans of the present day, who have become unable to obtain ecstasy in the fashion of the `great shamans of long ago' … where shamanism is in decomposition and the trance is simulated, there is also overindulgence … this (probably recent) phenomenon … for `forcing' trance … the decadence of a technique [by] `lower' peoples or social groups … is relatively recent … a vulgar substitute for `pure' trance … a recent innovation … a decadence in shamanic technique … an imitation of a state that the shaman is no longer capable of attaining otherwise … Decadence or … vulgarization of a mystical technique … this strange mixture of `difficult ways' and `easy ways' of realizing mystical ecstasy … produces contact with the spirits, but in a passive and crude way. … this shamanic technique appears to be late and derivative … a mechanical and corrupt method of reproducing `ecstasy' … it tries to imitate a model that is earlier and that belongs to another plane of reference … comparatively recent and derivative." Eliade, discussed in Wasson, Soma, pp. 326-334

Wasson demonstrates that Eliade put forth little to attempt to substantiate such a view. Eliade's error is now generally recognized; few would confidently affirm his presentation of this issue. Wasson critiques "students of religion" on "the birth of religion" and "the genesis of the Holy Mysteries" (p. 210), and presents a genuinely critical refutation of Eliade (pp. 328-334).

/ end of excerpt from article

Group: egodeath	Message: 5433	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

What is today's dead-wrong view that is held by official Christianity regarding the uncontroverted fact of the recent use of visionary plants in various brands of shamanistic-like Christianity? The view held by today's official Christianity regarding the current use of entheogens in Christian practice is exactly the view held by Eliade regarding the uncontroverted fact of the recent use of visionary plants in shamanism.

Therefore it is shockingly enlightening to read Eliade's entheogen-diminishing fallacies about shamanism after substituting the word 'Christian' or 'Christianity' in place of the word 'shamanistic' or 'shamanism' in Eliade's passage.

The word 'official', as used above, is a much safer word than 'traditional', the latter which begs the very question that is at issue, that being the question of:

What, indeed, is, in fact, "traditional" practice regarding entheogens in religious history?

As a characterization, today's view on the use of psychoactive plants in forms of Christian practice is that:

Such practice was either a fringe practice by Medieval heretics as evidenced by the mushrooms in Christian art from the Middle Ages, or it is recent, decadent, late, and a foreign importation that merely mimics in a degraded and low-class and decayed imitation of the *real* methods that *real* Christians used throughout Christian history. The false importation of drugs into Christianity is an impious contamination that challenges the true, non-Entheogenic Eucharist as believers in the Christian faith have always believed.

Below, I simply change the word 'shaman' to 'Christian' in my excerpts from Wasson's excerpts (in SOMA) of Eliade's writings. Wasson's presupposition that Judeo-Christianity is not drug-based is representative and characteristic of today's official Christianity view, isomorphic with Eliade's dead-wrong view on shamanism.

In effect, Wasson implicitly asserted that the use of drug-plants by Christians is:

"a decadence among the Christians of the present day, who have become unable to obtain ecstasy in the fashion of the 'great Christians of long ago' … where Christianity is in decomposition and the trance is simulated, there is also overindulgence … this (probably recent) phenomenon … for 'forcing' trance … the decadence of a technique [by] 'lower' peoples or social groups … is relatively recent … a vulgar substitute for 'pure' trance … a recent innovation … a decadence in Christian technique … an imitation of a state that the Christianity practitioner is no longer capable of attaining otherwise … Decadence or … vulgarization of a mystical technique … this strange mixture of 'difficult ways' and 'easy ways' of realizing mystical ecstasy … produces contact with the spirits, but in a passive and crude way. … this Christian technique appears
to be late and derivative … a mechanical and corrupt method of reproducing 'ecstasy' … it tries to imitate a model that is earlier and that belongs to another plane of reference … comparatively recent and derivative."

Eliade, discussed in Wasson, Soma, pp. 326-334, but with 'shaman' replaced by 'Christian' by Michael Hoffman

Just as Eliade's view turned out to be the opposite of the truth, so has Wasson's view turned out to be the opposite of the truth. Drug use is precisely and specifically the real meaning of the Eucharist, the body and blood of Christ, and Transubstantiation, and has always been held to be the case by the legitimate, authentic Christians throughout history that are the real Christians, whose view is correct and must be respected as authoritative against any other Christians who have wrongly thought the Eucharist isn't drugs.

Definition of authentic Christians and phony Christians (regarding drugs, not counter-Roman Imperial politics (actually counter-Papal politics, pseudo-projected back into Antiquity)):

Throughout history, the authentic, genuine, bona fide, true Christians are any Christians who correctly understood the Eucharist to be drug-plants such as psilocybe mushroom infused mixed-wine. These say "Jesus" and actually know him, and are his Elect, who God has chosen for Heaven.

Throughout history, the phony, fake, ersatz, false Christians are any Christians who mistakenly thought the Eucharist was not drug-plants such as psilocybe mushroom infused mixed-wine. These say "Jesus, Jesus", but they know him not, their names are not found written by the angel in the book of the Elect; God has abandoned them to Perdition, shut out from his Kingdom and the wedding banquet at the end of time with the bridegroom, Jesus.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5434	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

Clarification: I wrote:
lack of drug-based religion — being religious without going through the inherently entheogenic Eucharist — …

The phrase "being religious" is vulnerable to interpretation as if it legitimates today's phony notions of religion. Actually, according to the view put forth by the post, it's impossible to actually be religious without the entheogenic Eucharist; it's a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron, to say "being religious without entheogens". The phrase "being religious" there should read as "falsely claiming to be 'religious'", to explicitly shut out today's incorrect notions.

The corrected passage reads:

The true gateway theory is this: lack of drug-based religion — falsely claiming to be "religious" without going through the inherently entheogenic Eucharist — causes a plague of allowing and condoning egoic delusion, a plague of failing to puncture and expose the egoic delusion as essentially an illusion.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5435	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

The current official position, presupposition, and dogma is generalized as:

Entheogen religion is false religion; real religion is non-entheogen religion.

That is the opposite of the truth, which is generalized as:

Real religion is entheogen religion; non-entheogen religion is false religion.

I adopt and endorse the explanatory framework that religion without entheogens is oxymoronic, and irrelevant, and rare, and fringe, and exceptional, and warrants no more than a footnote. In general, authentic normal religion is entheogen-induced, or entheogen-based.

Generally, in almost all cases, religion or mysticism or actual mystic-state experiences that are not entheogen-induced are either inauthentic or are freak, deviant occurrences that are of negligible relevance to most people most of the time.

As far as most of the people most of the time, and how the normal brain is designed to work, real, authentic, actual religion is practically always entheogen-based, to the point where we can say that as a rule, real religion is entheogen religion, and false religion is non-entheogen religion.

This is the justification and qualification for my position, the Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion, which I created and thought of and have been advocating through postings, emailing scholars, and writing articles and web pages about for years. I have clarified what this means and can thus validly simply summarize in future writings:

Real religion is entheogen religion, and false religion is non-entheogen religion.

This is extremely close to the truth. It is vastly closer to the truth than the current official position, and makes a useful interpretive principle to keep in mind and apply.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5436	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

As we now have admitted and realized, per Wasson, against Eliade's ignorant view that was — to borrow Wasson's own confident verbiage — a "misinterpretation" and "misapprehension"; a "naive blunder" made in his "isolation" from "the most eminent" experts of his day regarding psychoactive plants in religious history:

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate shamanism is entheogen-based shamanism. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-shamanism is non-entheogen-based "shamanism".

By the same token, the same applies to any and every brand of religion, or every brand of equivalent transcendent flavor, team, tradition, brotherhood, surface styling, or what-have-you. The generalized rule is:

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate [your favored transcendent practice] is entheogen-based [your favored transcendent practice]. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-[your favored transcendent practice] is non-entheogen-based "[your favored transcendent practice]".

There are many more religions and brands of practices or "beliefs" or philosophies than I missed below. There are some very major ones that momentarily slipped my mind because I was busy quickly listing some 45 other brands major and minor. The same rule and principle applies to every last one of them, no exceptions. 'Entheogen' here means plant, fungus, gas, chemical, or equivalent electrical stimulation or equivalent.

Meditation or torture or hyperventilation or other approaches are backdoor, abnormal and unergonomic ways of, to a limited extent, triggering the loosecog state; their messiness and roundabout and time-wasting quality do not elevate them to the level of legitimacy of visionary plants, but rather simply proves that visionary plants are the normal, natural, straightforward way that religion has been discovered and readily accessed by everyone throughout history.

My theory, which is the Egodeath theory (that is, the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence), is inherently, by definition, entheogen based, and it sometimes emphasizes the loosecog mental state induced by entheogens, but specifies that the loosecog state is precisely by definition the result of entheogens, and that a more neutral and to-the-point label for 'entheogens' (regarding how entheogens affect our cognitive state so as to produce their transcendent effects) is 'loosecog agents'. I reject any proposition to construct a non-entheogen-based version of the Egodeath theory.

For the Egodeath theory, which is a scientific theory, the preferred term internal to the theory is 'loosecog agents', while the term 'entheogen' or even 'psychotomimetic' is useful for explaining previous theories (per Paul Thagard's 3rd quality of a good new explanatory framework after breadth of explanatory power and after conceptual coherence), providing the ability to explain (and connect to) previous theories.

The natural language of the Egodeath theory is the language of phenomenological cognitive psychology and cognitive science per Benny Shanon, which I developed on my own as a special-purpose language around April 1987 (Mental Construct Processing).

My version of this cognitive science construct is Mental Construct Processing, which is the only defined conceptual system specifically optimized for exploring the dynamics of the intense altered state. For example, Mental Construct Processing can explain, in direct, non-metaphor-based terms, the Control Vortex as a strange attractor that is the most interesting thing to egoic thinking and the most terminal construct that egoic thinking can encounter and construct. My theory, Mental Construct Processing, is related to the efforts of John Lilly's Metaprogramming paradigm, and James Kent's Psychedelic Information Theory (PIT).

Egoic thinking is like a donkey that carries the mind to the point of egodeath, by following and hunting-out the flashing beacon of the Control Vortex, which is seeing the source and fountainhead of our thoughts, and seeing that egoic thinking cannot control that source but the mind is helplessly a recipient of that source of one's own control-thoughts.

Here are a few examples of applying this principle of my theory, which is the Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion, which gets extremely close to the truth:

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Alchemy is entheogen-based Alchemy. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Alchemy is non-entheogen-based "Alchemy".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Apocalypticism is entheogen-based Apocalypticism. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Apocalypticism is non-entheogen-based "Apocalypticism".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Astral Ascent Mysticism is entheogen-based Astral Ascent Mysticism. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Astral Ascent Mysticism is non-entheogen-based "Astral Ascent Mysticism".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Buddhism is entheogen-based Buddhism. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Buddhism is non-entheogen-based "Buddhism".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Catholicism is entheogen-based Catholicism. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Catholicism is non-entheogen-based "Catholicism".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Christianity is entheogen-based Christianity. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Christianity is non-entheogen-based "Christianity".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Classic Rock is entheogen-based Classic Rock. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Classic Rock is non-entheogen-based "Classic Rock".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Egodeath is entheogen-based Egodeath. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Egodeath is non-entheogen-based "Egodeath".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Freemasonry is entheogen-based Freemasonry. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Freemasonry is non-entheogen-based "Freemasonry".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Gnosticism is entheogen-based Gnosticism. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Gnosticism is non-entheogen-based "Gnosticism".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Goddess worship is entheogen-based Goddess worship. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Goddess worship is non-entheogen-based "Goddess worship".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Hekalot mysticism is entheogen-based Hekalot mysticism. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Hekalot mysticism is non-entheogen-based "Hekalot mysticism".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Hinduism is entheogen-based Hinduism. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Hinduism is non-entheogen-based "Hinduism".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Human Potential philosophy is entheogen-based Human Potential philosophy. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Human Potential philosophy is non-entheogen-based "Human Potential philosophy".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Imperial Ruler Cult is entheogen-based Imperial Ruler Cult. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Imperial Ruler Cult is non-entheogen-based "Imperial Ruler Cult".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Islam is entheogen-based Islam. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Islam is non-entheogen-based "Islam".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Jewish religion is entheogen-based Jewish religion. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Jewish religion is non-entheogen-based "Jewish religion".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Kabbalah is entheogen-based Kabbalah. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Kabbalah is non-entheogen-based "Kabbalah".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Magick is entheogen-based Magick. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Magick is non-entheogen-based "Magick".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Meditation is entheogen-based Meditation. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Meditation is non-entheogen-based "Meditation".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Merkabah mysticism is entheogen-based Merkabah mysticism. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Merkabah mysticism is non-entheogen-based "Merkabah mysticism".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Mithraism is entheogen-based Mithraism. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Mithraism is non-entheogen-based "Mithraism".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Mystery Religion is entheogen-based Mystery Religion. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Mystery Religion is non-entheogen-based "Mystery Religion".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Mysticism is entheogen-based Mysticism. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Mysticism is non-entheogen-based "Mysticism".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Nature mysticism is entheogen-based Nature mysticism. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Nature mysticism is non-entheogen-based "Nature mysticism".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Neoplatonism is entheogen-based Neoplatonism. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Neoplatonism is non-entheogen-based "Neoplatonism".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate New Age religion is entheogen-based New Age religion. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-New Age religion is non-entheogen-based "New Age religion".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Occultism is entheogen-based Occultism. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Occultism is non-entheogen-based "Occultism".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Otherworld Voyaging is entheogen-based Otherworld Voyaging. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Otherworld Voyaging is non-entheogen-based "Otherworld Voyaging".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Philosophy is entheogen-based Philosophy. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Philosophy is non-entheogen-based "Philosophy".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Protestantism is entheogen-based Protestantism. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Protestantism is non-entheogen-based "Protestantism".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Religion is entheogen-based Religion. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Religion is non-entheogen-based "Religion".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Scientific Spirituality is entheogen-based Scientific Spirituality. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Scientific Spirituality is non-entheogen-based "Scientific Spirituality".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Secret Society practice is entheogen-based Secret Society practice. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Secret Society practice is non-entheogen-based "Secret Society practice".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Shamanism is entheogen-based Shamanism. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Shamanism is non-entheogen-based "Shamanism".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Spirituality is entheogen-based Spirituality. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Spirituality is non-entheogen-based "Spirituality".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Theosophy is entheogen-based Theosophy. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Theosophy is non-entheogen-based "Theosophy".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Traditional religion is entheogen-based Traditional religion. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Traditional religion is non-entheogen-based "Traditional religion".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Transcendent practice is entheogen-based Transcendent practice. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Transcendent practice is non-entheogen-based "Transcendent practice".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Transpersonal Psychology is entheogen-based Transpersonal Psychology. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Transpersonal Psychology is non-entheogen-based "Transpersonal Psychology".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Western Esotericism is entheogen-based Western Esotericism. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Western Esotericism is non-entheogen-based "Western Esotericism".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Zen practice is entheogen-based Zen practice. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Zen practice is non-entheogen-based "Zen practice".

Real, authentic, traditional, legitimate Zoroastrianism is entheogen-based Zoroastrianism. Fake, bunk, ersatz, phony, pseudo-Zoroastrianism is non-entheogen-based "Zoroastrianism".

Here is the partial, incomplete list of brands of religions or equivalent, each of which have a false, non-entheogenic version and a true, entheogen-centric version:

Alchemy
Apocalypticism
Astral Ascent Mysticism
Buddhism
Catholicism
Christianity
Classic Rock
Egodeath
Freemasonry
Gnosticism
Goddess worship
Hekalot mysticism
Hinduism
Human Potential philosophy
Imperial Ruler Cult
Islam
Jewish religion
Kabbalah
Magick
Meditation
Merkabah mysticism
Mithraism
Mystery Religion
Mysticism
Nature Mysticism
Neoplatonism
New Age religion
Occultism
Otherworld Voyaging
Philosophy
Protestantism
Religion
Scientific Spirituality
Secret Society practice
Shamanism
Spirituality
Theosophy
Traditional religion
Transcendent practice
Transpersonal Psychology
Western Esotericism
Zen practice

Group: egodeath	Message: 5437	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

The official view is that non-entheogenic methods are definitive of how the mystic state was historically accessed. Actually, entheogens are historically the definitive method of accessing the mystic state.

It is exactly wrong and reversed to assume that non-entheogenic methods of mysticism are traditional and definitive of how mystics accessed the mystic state or Holy Spirit throughout history, and then to judge the legitimacy of entheogen use by treating non-entheogenic mysticism as the standard method that is definitive of what mysticism was about, or how that state was entered.

The reverse must be done instead: Entheogen use is the original, traditional, standard, normal, definitive means by which mystics historically entered or accessed the mystic state or Holy Spirit.

Any purported, supposed method of accessing the mystic state of consciousness that isn't the use of drugs, must be judged and evaluated in terms of how well it matches the entheogenic altered state, and in terms of how ergonomically efficient and efficacious the contender is in relation to the highly, extremely ergonomic access to the mystic state that entheogens have always provided ever since man ate (as one easy-to-ingest example) psychoactive, psilocybe mushrooms.

It is dishonest or profoundly misguided to ask the question as the official paradigm's writers (such as Gnosis magazine) always do: "Do visionary plants and chemicals produce a mystic state that matches the mystic state that's accessed by the traditional methods?"

That question begs the question that it steamrollers right over; the question contains an insinuated, implied falsehood and logically raises the pre-question "Which is the traditional method of accessing the mystic state: entheogen use, or non-entheogen methods?"

The truth is that the traditional methods mystics (and house-church Christians, shamans, mystery religion initiates, religious banquet party clubs in Antiquity, and so on) used to access the mystic state is entheogens, and that the legitimacy of any other methods must be judged and evaluated in terms of how well they reproduce the traditional effects or state, which is to say the entheogen-induced state of consciousness — judging the quality of the state and the efficacy of how that state is accessed.

We will find that, when non-entheogen mystic methods are judged against the entheogen mystic method, the state produced by the non-entheogen methods is feeble compared to the entheogen state, and that the non-entheogen means of accessing the state is highly non-ergonomic compared to simply and naturally ingesting entheogens.

Entheogens are by far the most straightforward and efficacious way of inducing the intense mystic altered state, and that's exactly why entheogens are the true, traditional, definitive reference point by which all mystic methods must be compared, assessed, and judged.

Which method is definitive in religious history and mystic tradition? The current official view (it is not legitimately dubbed as "orthodox", "traditional", "popular", or even "dominant", because those are all precisely what's at issue) is that entheogens are the definitive method of inducing the mystic state, while non-entheogen based techniques are distinctly *not* definitive methods of accessing or mimicking or simulating the mystic state.

In fact — against the current official view — the *actually* popular, actually orthodox, actually traditional, and actually dominant view ('dominant' by the most suitable definition) is that religion, the ecstatic state, the Holy Spirit, or mystic experiencing (all equivalent terms) is entheogen-based.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5438	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Peyote from Texas cave carbon-dated to 5000 BC

The Texas cave peyote evidence is discussed on page 153, by Peter Furst, in Higher Wisdom, in Furst's article "Ancient Altered States"

Higher Wisdom: Eminent Elders Explore the Continuing Impact of Psychedelics
Suny Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology
Roger Walsh (Editor), Charles S. Grob (Editor)
2005
http://google.com/search?q=%22Higher+Wisdom%22+Walsh+Grob
http://amazon.com/dp/0791465187
SUNY Press
In books at Amazon, search "ancient", click page 153 or nearby.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5439	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

I learned when writing my Wasson article that every statement, every fact, every implied or insinuated assertion, is potentially false or completely distorted or so vague as to be practically meaningless. I can't guarantee that every point I make in this posting is accurate, without spending an hour tackling Wasson's vague, wishy-washy, evasive, roundabout wording and shaking Wasson and interrogating him "Exactly what is it that you are asserting, and not asserting?! Be clear, explicit, and specific, for Christ's sake!"

Higher Wisdom: Eminent Elders Explore the Continuing Impact of Psychedelics
Suny Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology
Roger Walsh (Editor), Charles S. Grob (Editor)
Peter Furst (b. 1922): article: "Ancient Altered States"
2005
http://google.com/search?q=%22Higher+Wisdom%22+Walsh+Grob
http://amazon.com/dp/0791465187
SUNY Press
In books at Amazon, search "ancient", click page 155 or nearby.

According to Furst's article, the interviewer asks:
"What is your opinion of the long-running debate about the role of psychedelics in religion? At one extreme there are people who agree with the religious scholar Mircea Eliade, who said that the use of psychedelics represents a decadent form of religious practice. At the other extreme are people who agree with the ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson, that psychedelics were the origin of all religion."

Furst replied:
"Well, I think that Wasson went too far. But I talked to Eliade about six months before he died. There was a conference on consciousness in Switzerland, and Eliade [couldn't go, but met with Furst and invited Furst to attend the conference in his place]. So I called him and we talked for a long time. I told him that I disagreed with his take on hallucinogens, and he said, "Well, you have to remember that my book was written in the early 1950s. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy came out in France in 1951. What did we know in the early 1950s about these things?" For example, he did not know the antiquity of hallucinogens in America."

There hasn't been a real debate. The so-called "debate" has not been long-running. By any measure, the earliest we can say the "debate" started is perhaps 1957 or 1968, and Furst's question was perhaps talking in 2004.

That's at most, 2004-1957 years = 47 years, or 2011-1957=54 years from now. And Graves wrote letters to Wasson about mushrooms as a central key solution to Greek Myth in 1952 and 1955, and visited with Wasson discussing these things, and Graves published his should-be seminal, milestone, groundbreaking article Centaurs' Food in 1956 — only 55 years ago.

And a real debate hasn't even begun yet, to this day! 2006 (or earlier) and this week I threw down the gauntlet in starkest language.

I'm saying, with far greater scope of ambition than Wasson or anyone else, a scope that is impossible to exceed, the position that is vaguely and wrongly attributed to Wasson in the interviewer's question above: *I* have *truly* asserted that "psychedelics are the origin of all religion", following up on Allegro's bold assertion of Amanita (in place of a historical Jesus) as origin of "our" culture's religion, Christianity — but I have taken that few much farther than Allegro within Christian history and to the deepest core of Christian and Catholic Eucharistic tradition.

Clark Heinrich stretched Amanita through the history of Western religion including Western Esotericism, and I'm pushing the theory even farther, wider, and deeper, with the full range of entheogens effectively supporting all religions, in all eras, in all regions, with additional input from the tepid fence-sitting Moderate Entheogen Theory scholars such as Mark Hoffman with Entheos magazine and Carl Ruck.

Not only are entheogens the *origin* of all religions, they are the *ongoing basis*, in any substantial relevant sense, for the religions. Entheogens were and have been the ongoing engine, the Source, the fountainhead of inspiration of all religions. Exceptions prove the rule and are worth only footnoting.

I am the one who studied theology of the Eucharist and determined that the early Bishops, or the monastic scribes who wrote under the same of pretendedly early Church Fathers, and determined that they are speaking of and intending to think about the Eucharist as distinctly entheogen-based. No, the "debate" hasn't even begun, and yet the Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion has already won the would-be "debate".

When supposedly "ancient" Church Fathers write about the Eucharist, they are directly thinking in terms of psychoactive mushrooms as such, and equivalent plants — same as Pagan writers in antiquity.

Wasson didn't assert that psychedelics were the origin of all religion. The questioner is vague in saying "all religion". Wasson didn't assert that psychedelics were the origin of Christianity, only that psychedelics were in some vague, unspecified way involved in the idea of the Eden tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in or before the writing of Genesis.

Wasson didn't stick his neck out and write in clear, frank language, that early Jewish practice was based on the use of psychoactive plants. He wrote in his characteristic evasive, vague, confusing, vacillating, dissimulating, mendacious manner that the Eden story reflected the knowledge of earlier use of the plants.

He always denied and never retracted his assertion (which he himself privately admitted that he didn't even firmly believe) that the Plaincourault fresco, dated to the Middle Ages, doesn't portray Amanita — and therefore by proxy, Wasson implied that — and in his evasively worded treatment of the visions in Revelation — Christianity historically didn't involve entheogen use, in Antiquity or in the Middle Ages.

All Wasson's writing about the subject of entheogens throughout Christian history is accomplished in a roundabout, evasive manner, never asserting anything explicitly, never denying anything clearly. No wonder no one can accurately state Wasson's position. He evaded the responsibility of taking a position or even of whether he was taking one or not.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5440	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

Typo corrections:

I have taken that view much farther than Allegro

monastic scribes who wrote under the name of pretendedly early Church Fathers

Group: egodeath	Message: 5441	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 29/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

I will go so far as to antagonize and taunt and mock the dead in promoting my Maximal theory, since the religious experts and authorities have already made up their mind ahead of time that the Entheogen theory of religion is "implausible" because it's in bad taste, and of course it's a no-brainer that the ancients, Apostles, and Church Fathers wouldn't have used drugs.

Just to make Wasson roll over in his grave, here is a photograph of the published quote of his own words "rightly or wrongly", which he was embarrassed and apparently angry to slowly realize was published:

http://egodeath.com/wassonsomaannotatedpages.htm
Ramsbottom Mushrooms and Toadstools, page 48, in full-size font in an addendum right in the body of the text, not buried in a small footnote, not hidden away in an endnote.

SAYETH THE VENERABLE AUTHORITY R. GORDON WASSON, IN RAMSBOTTOM'S MUSHROOM BOOK:
"Rightly or wrongly, we are going to reject the Plaincourault fresco as representing a mushroom. [blah blah etc.]"

Rightly you say "wrongly", Wasson, "authority on the folk-lore of fungi" — same as Eliade was an "authority" on shamanism and you showed the total baselessness and illegitimacy of *his* arbitrary anti-entheogenic position on shamanistic use of Amanita. Mind that ricochet of your own argument against Eliade back onto you.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5442	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: The Entheogenic Apocalypse

The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature
John Joseph Collins
1984/1988
Eerdmans & Dove
http://google.com/search?q=%22Apocalyptic+Imagination%22+Collins
http://amazon.com/0802843719

My condensed excerpts from Collins' Epilogue:

This genre was characterized by revelation, through heavenly journeys or visions, mediated by an angel to a pseudonymous seer. The genre provides a comprehensive view of the world, which then provides the basis for exhortation or consolation. The constant factor is that the problem the undesirable situation being addressed is put in perspective by the otherworldly revelation of a transcendent world and eschatological judgment.

Millenarianism hopes for the overthrow or reversal of the present social order toward the attainment of heaven on earth, often led by a charismatic prophet. The goal they envision often includes the transformation of the earth. The most distinctive features of apocalyptic hope are otherworldly; they concern life with the angels or the resurrection of the dead.

They hope for a messianic reign on earth but also look beyond it to a new creation and the judgment of the dead. Charismatic leaders play a very limited role. After the failure of the Jewish revolts against Rome, the tradition flourished in the Hekalot literature and in messianic and eschatological expectation. Messianic and apocalyptic movements have continued to flourish in modern Israel. We may distinguish the "horizontal" (time) eschatological concerns of the "pursuit of the millennium" in the Middle Ages, and the "vertical" visionary literature such as Dante's Divine Comedy.

The language of the apocalypses is not descriptive, referential, newspaper language, but the *expressive* language of poetry, which uses symbols and imagery to articulate a sense or feeling about the world. Their abiding value does not lie in the pseudoinformation they provide about cosmology or future history, but in their affirmation of a transcendent world. The social and cultural worlds we inhabit are constantly crumbling [particularly after about the fourth cup of psilocybe mushroom wine, or peganum harmala and acacia bark – Ed.] …

The genre is a way of affirming transcendent values, those things we should affirm even when the world around us collapses. The apocalyptic revelations are symbolic attempts to provide ways of imagining the unknown, not factual knowledge. The value of these imaginative ventures cannot be assessed by a correspondence theory of truth, but only by evaluating the actions and attitudes which they supported.

Apocalyptic language is not only expressive; it also has a pragmatic aspect to exhort and console. They do not take the stance of a neutral observer, but take and urge a very definite point of view. We are asked to let ourselves be persuaded. Apocalyptic language is *commissive* in character: it commits us to a view of the world for the sake of the actions and attitudes that are entailed.

The apocalyptic literature does not lend itself to the ontological and objectivist concerns of systematic theology. It is far more congenial to the pragmatic tendency of liberation theology, which is not engaged in the pursuit of objective truth but in the dynamics of motivation and the exercise of political power. [cites Liberating Exegesis]

/ pausing the excerpts from Collins' The Apocalyptic Imagination

Liberating Exegesis: The Challenge of Liberation Theology to Biblical Studies
Mark Corner, Christopher Rowland
1989
http://amazon.com/dp/066425084X
Westminster/John Knox
Condensed excerpts:
"Jesus' teaching should be set in the context of political reform and revolution. The Gospels justify the use of the term 'political' to describe Jesus' activity. Jesus is a very revolutionary figure engaged in a project which was going to revolutionize the understanding of the present responsibility of the people of God. According to the synoptic narrative, he predicted the end of the old order of society and the beginning of a new one. He did not exercise political power. It was the power of the charismatic leader who attracts a following, the kind of leader who is at the edge of conventional life and whose political thrust consists in the position of marginality which makes an alternative political culture, however embryonic its form, a possibility."

Continuing condensed excerpts from Collins' The Apocalyptic Imagination:

The apocalypses conspicuously lack a program for effective action. The "action" of the maskilim in Daniel was to instruct the masses and wait for the victory of Michael. [for like an hour, when the mixed wine kicks in – Ed.] In the wake of the destruction of Jerusalem, they divert their attention to the mysteries of God.

The visionaries were seldom revolutionaries. Their strong sense that human affairs are controlled by higher power usually limited the scope of human initiative. The apocalyptic revolution is a revolution in the imagination. It entails a challenge to view the world in a way that is radically different from the common perception. The revolutionary potential of such imagination should not be underestimated, as it can foster dissatisfaction with the present and generate visions of what might be.

The legacy of the apocalypses includes a powerful rhetoric for denouncing the deficiencies of this world. It also includes the conviction that the world as now constituted is not the end. Most of all, it entails an appreciation of the great resource that lies in the human imagination to construct a symbolic world where the integrity of values can be maintained in the face of social and political powerlessness and even of the threat of death.

/ end of my condensed excerpts from The Apocalyptic Imagination

You've got to believe in yourself or no one
Will I believe in you
Imagination like a bird on the wing
Flying, free for you to use

— Bob Daisley, "Believer"

The Jews and proto-Christians in antiquity didn't have political power, but they had an overabundance of mixed-wine to formulate a Mystery Religion with an Agape Meal banqueting tradition that leveraged the Jewish-themed thus anti-Roman Imperial egalitarian social-political society-within-a-society using a synagogue-network type of house-churches social-support arrangement.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5443	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: Ivy, vine, serpent/snake, crown of thorns

The serpent appears in art mostly because of its shape, not its poison or shedding skin. The shape of a snake is the shape of your path, your life, through space and time.

Your life = worldline (pre-set *path* through spacetime) = snake-shaped.

To consider the serpent as representing your own worldline that is your subjective experiential life in the 4-D block universe with time as a spacelike dimension, consider — like the movie Donny Darko — your path of your body moving through space, like a curving path you walk on toward the Mysteries of Eleusis. Your path moves through time as well as space.

The path you walk on, during time, is shaped like a snake, in that both are finite-length 1-dimensional shapes, like the Fates' thread that's cut to a fated length, and like a monocoursal labyrinth where the youth is sacrificed to the Minotaur bull-man in the middle (the bull producing psilocybe mushrooms used in mixed wine).

In mythic art, the shape of the snake is often depicted. Biting with poison, and shedding the skin, are not depicted.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5444	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: Bk: Ruck: Hidden World: Survival Pagan Shamanic in Fairytales

The Hidden World: Survival of Pagan Shamanic Themes in European Fairytales
Carl Ruck, Blaise Staples, Jose Celdran, Mark Hoffman
2007
http://google.com/search?q=%22Hidden+World%22+Ruck+Staples
http://amazon.com/dp/1594601445

These authors, researchers, and scholars have proven trustworthy. If they tell us entheogen scholars that there's good, useful, interesting evidence for entheogens in fairytales, then I automatically accept this and recommend that people trust these authors and scoop up and integrate their valuable findings.

It is no longer a matter of skeptically doubting and testing their findings; we are far beyond that, and skeptics should be mostly ignored, to focus time efficiently on further advancement within the entheogen paradigm. The first order of business is not to convince skeptics, but rather, to improve the paradigm and fill it in. The primary audience for entheogen scholars should be other entheogen scholars; skeptics are merely a secondary or incidental audience.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5445	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Apples of Apollo: Pagan/Christian Mysteries/Eucharist (Ruck et al)

The Apples of Apollo: Pagan and Christian Mysteries of the Eucharist
Carl Ruck, Blaise Staples, Clark Heinrich
2000
http://google.com/search?q=%22Apples+of+Apollo%22+Ruck
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/089089924X
http://csp.org/chrestomathy/apples_apollo.html — Excerpts

I've mentioned this book in some past posts.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5446	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: How old is the Entheogen Theory of Religion?

It's wrong to approach this scholarship with the suspicion that the bits of data as evidence are questionable and therefore the theory is questionable. This goes for John Rush's book with unnecessarily blurry images and that lacks much of the best evidence. The theory is not questionable.

Individual data points might possibly be wrong — that is, the author didn't intend them as allusions to entheogens (or the cognitive phenomenology induced thereby, except that these authors little treat that aspect) — but the theory is more than adequately supported, so any book operating from within the theory is correct and helpful, even if the book covers some data points that weren't intended as entheogen allusions.

It's too late to "test" the Entheogen Theory of Religion. At this late point, we're only fleshing-in the theory, which has already been established, as delivering greater explanatory power than the vague non-theory of the non-entheogenic "theory" of religion. I've read a couple books surveying the attempted theories of mystic experiencing, and they are laughably clueless — and most notably, these books fail to treat the new theory, which is the Entheogen theory.

When did I form the Maximal Entheogen Theory of religion? Sometime between 2001 and 2007; it's a soft, subjective, matter of degree. Check the Egodeath Yahoogroup posts. I love that the Yahoo group (and email from it) shows exact dates and postings, leaving a real-time trace of exactly *how much* I thought of a certain idea on a certain day, how much my grasp of it was deepened, providing data to form a sophisticated idea-development curve or discreet graph over time.

This way, I can assess the subjective, arguable, matter-of-degree "date" at which I had my initial or my major breakthrough on a given idea. It's kind of like the futile game "When was the first Bible available?" which instantly dissolves into a debate about terminology.

For example, consider the difficulty in attempting to assign a date to formulating this specific idea: When did I first equate the serpent with heimarmene (that is, with the frozen worldline in the time-as-4th-dimension block universe)? It's somewhat of a subjective research project in the Egodeath archives.

My mid-1990s sketchbook shows a drawing of a snake bursting through the block universe, but all I can say for sure without more fact-checking in my files and diaries is that I didn't have as strong as grasp of snake = worldline = heimarmene then, as I developed around 2005, and as I continued to develop to present such as explicitly equating the Eden tree snake as knowledge of heimarmene and heimarmene's implications for the knowledge of the illusory aspect of moral culpability.

In particular, recently I connected the heimarmene-serpent of Eden with the metal church door (shown in Entheos journal) with the hand of God accusing Adam who points accusing Eve who points accusing the heimarmene-Serpent who inevitably was predestined to bring to her the Fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil — which in effect, points back to God as the real, ultimate culprit — which loop the inverse authors of Revelation.

The compilers of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation surely recognized the blame/control loop from God to Adam to Eve to Serpent to Jesus to back to God from the beginning point to endpoint of the Bible, given how the tree of life brackets the start and end of the Bible, equated with the wedding banquet of the Elect with the savior.

"Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God." — Revelation 2:7

Jesus or Christ as ruler and divine moral target or rightful scapegoat is given by God as his avatar and God's moral representative who rightly ultimately deserves all credit and all blame, as the avatar of the ultimate controller of the world. God points blaming Adam, who points blaming Eve, who points blaming the heimarmene-serpent, who has no hand but would point back to blame God.

One great thing about Mark Hoffman's Entheos journal is that its illustrations are clearly reproduced, unlike John Rush's book. The art in Entheos journal is as convincing as John Rush's hazy, blurry art is unconvincing — not that we're still at such an early, primitive point that we're still doubting the Entheogen theory. There is no doubt by this late, mature date, of the Entheogen theory.

The only debate now is the exact extent of usage of entheogens in religious history, and the routine game of connect-the-dots where more and more, and more recognition is had, first of allusions to the sheer presence of visionary plants, and now after my work and Benny Shanon's, recognition of allusions to the cognitive phenomenology that results from the visionary plants.

When I criticize John Rush's very low-grade quality of his art reproductions, this is not to be taken as doubting the Entheogen Theory which his art supports, but rather, it is strictly a criticism that sacred art ought to be legible and vivid, and I wish he had included all the art I found, and all the Christian art that Mark Hoffman got ahold of, and the other entheogen scholars.

This is a subset of items, that I happen to have on hand, intending to ask how old the Entheogen Theory of Religion is. These dates should be fact-checked. My policy is to, ideally, show what day was the book first printed, although I also wish to post the date when the author finished the manuscript, and I'd like to know what day the author thought of an idea.

These are generally works about the use of entheogens prior to the late modern era, but I included Shanon because he, with me, points the way forward beyond Ruck's generation of proving merely the sheer *presence* of entheogens centrally in religion.

And Huxley has to be mentioned as the first writer with major public exposure, even though he may have permitted the misconception that entheogen use was limited in religious history and seems as if a novel and recent discovery (a too-long reigning misconception that trainwrecked the 1960s, or that caused a huge missed opportunity, in the popular conception of "psychedelics" in the 1960s).

These start off as brief, minimal asides that correctly summarize the Entheogen Theory of Mystery Religions, and hit the nail on the head, though they don't attempt to specify *which* drugs were used in the Mystery Religion initiations. Ordered by date.

Eusebe Salverte — Occult Sciences, 1846
Helena Blavatsky — Isis Unveiled, 1877
Rolfe — The Romance of the Fungus World: An Account of Fungus Life in Its Numerous Guises, Both Real and Legendary, 1925; foreword by John Ramsbottom, 1924.
Manly Hall — The Secret Teachings of All Ages, 1928
Aldous Huxley: Moksha: Writings on Psychedelics and the Visionary Experience (1931-1963)
[1940s?]
John Ramsbottom — Mushrooms & Toadstools: A Study of the Activities of Fungi, 1953
Robert Graves — "Centaurs' Food", 1956
R. Gordon Wasson — Mushrooms, Russia, and History, 1957
Robert Graves — Oxford Addresses on Poetry, 1962
R. Gordon Wasson — SOMA: Divine Mushroom of Immortality, 1968
John Allegro — The Sacred Mushroom & the Cross, 1970
Robert Graves — Difficult Questions, Easy Answers, 1973
R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann, Carl Ruck — The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries, 1978
Albert Hofmann, Richard Schultes, Christian Ratsch — Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing and Hallucinogenic Powers, 1979
[1980s?]
Clark Heinrich — Strange Fruit: Alchemy and Religion: The Hidden Truth, 1994
Dan Russell — Shamanism and the Drug Propaganda: Patriarchy and the Drug War, 1998
Dan Merkur — The Psychedelic Sacrament: Manna, Meditation, and Mystical Experience, 2001
Carl Ruck, Blaise Staples, Clark Heinrich — The Apples of Apollo: Pagan and Christian Mysteries of the Eucharist, 2001
Mark Hoffman (editor) — Entheos: The Journal of Psychedelic Spirituality, 2001-2002
Michael Hoffman — Egodeath site and discussion group, 2001
Mark Hoffman, Carl Ruck, Blaise Staples — "The Entheogenic Eucharist of Mithras". Entheos 2.1:13-46, 2002
Benny Shanon — The Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience, 2002
Mike Crowley — Secret Drugs of Buddhism, 2004
Michael Hoffman — "The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death". Salvia Divinorum magazine, 2006
Michael Hoffman — "Wasson and Allegro on the Tree of Knowledge as Amanita". Journal of Higher Criticism, 2006
Dan Hillman — The Chemical Muse: Drug Use and the Roots of Western Civilization, 2008
Jan Irvin, Jack Herer — The Holy Mushroom: Evidence of Mushrooms in Judeo-Christianity, 2008
Michael Rinella — Pharmakon: Plato, Drug Culture, and Identity in Ancient Athens, 2010
John Rush — The Mushroom in Christian Art: The Identity of Jesus in the Development of Christianity, 2011
Carl Ruck, Mark Hoffman, Jose Celdran — Mushrooms, Myth and Mithras: The Drug Cult that Civilized Europe, 2011

Though completely incomplete, this list provides enough reminders for entheogen historians to get an impression to try to answer the simple-seeming question, How old is the Entheogen Theory of Religion, in "our" (modern scholars') understanding?

My gut feeling is that the Entheogen Theory of Religion didn't really, effectively break through the surface into "our shared knowledge" until very recently, such as in the era of Entheos journal (2002). The theory seems to pick up speed in the 2000s.

For all practical purposes, the Entheogen theory of religion didn't become widely known until the 2000s. Now, it would be impossible to be interested in entheogens without being aware of the densely populated history of entheogen use. A few years ago I still had to explain the term 'entheogens' to my presumably well-informed friends. I sense that we are finally past that point.

Now my heart is warmed and I'm glad to see that every ignoramous in town is slinging disparagement at the entheogen theory; this marks our success at our goal as entheogen scholars. We have achieved the point in a new theory's reception where everyone dismisses it as ridiculous.

In my entheogen library, some of my most must-have publications are Heinrich's Strange Fruit and the 3 issues of Entheos journal. These, in my opinion — this issue is a matter of subjective estimate — mark the breakthrough of the Entheogen Theory into a sufficiently widely scoped and well-evidenced theory.

My overall theory is not the Entheogen theory, but is the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence, which *incorporates* my specially revised version of the Entheogen theory, which is the Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion (circa 2001?) — together with my customized special-purpose Theory of Mental Construct Processing (1987), and other areas such as Domain Dynamics (circa 1987) as my view on how areas of knowledge interrelate.

My main article, develops my Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion as a jumping-off point, to provide a cognitive theory — developed 1985-1996 — to go along with the Maximal Entheogen Theory which I perhaps could usefully say that I developed 2001-2006, given that I took up Heinrich's book Strange Fruit, and Allegro's book Sacred Mushroom/Cross and the latter's ahistoricity by Nov. 14, 2001.

I created around that day the key theory that religious myth is, first and foremost, metaphorical description of the entheogen-induced mystic altered state. It would be good to critically fact-check whether I formed *that* exact theory (of religious myth) around that date, or I formed that theory of religious myth before or after that date. Fortunately, the date-stamped emails and postings permit such critical date research.

The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death
http://egodeath.com/EntheogenTheoryOfReligion.htm

Even to today, I'm hammering the Maximal Entheogen Religion into clearer form, so that it stands completely independently from the official Entheogen Diminishing model of religion, as a successful breakaway, new explanatory framework that stands outside and above the old, confused framework that has poor explanatory power.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5447	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: How old is the Entheogen Theory of Religion?

Clarification:
which loop the inverse authors of Revelation recognized and intended.

There is a deliberate cycle or sequence in the Bible:

o Tree of life and tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis)
o Scrolls given to eat, producing visions (Ezekiel 2:9-3:4)
o Scrolls given to eat, producing visions (Rev.)
o Tree of life (Rev.)

Eating of a tree gives knowledge of good and evil (meaning either egoic moral agency or its opposite: transcendent awareness of the illusory aspect of egoic moral culpability) in the start of the Bible, then forgiveness or cancellation of sins, and eating of the tree of life, at the end of the Bible.

The Eden trees with Amanita are inverted or complementary to the Tree of Life in Heaven on Earth, and the Amanita scrolls, in Revelation. We start with Adam eating Amanita, and we end with the Elect consuming the Banquet in an Amanita vision, with the tree of life present.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5448	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: How old is the Entheogen Theory of Religion?

I fixed that typo, should be "ignoramus" — I hope no content was lost, since I posted the non-final draft.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5449	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: How old is the Entheogen Theory of Religion?

Clarification of "My main article, develops my Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion as a jumping-off point…"

My main article takes up and summarizes my Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion as a jumping-off point, to provide a cognitive theory (developed and uploaded 1985-1996) to go along with it.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5450	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: How old is the Entheogen Theory of Religion?

I wrote:

> My main article takes up and summarizes my Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion as a jumping-off point, to provide a cognitive theory (developed and uploaded 1985-1996) to go along with it.

The 4 pillars of Fundamental Dogmatic Truth are (most important ones first):
Cybernetics
Heimarmene
Loosecog (includes Entheogens)
Metaphor

There's no Metaphor section in my main article; no section dedicated to the theory that religious myth is metaphorical description of the cognitive phenomenology induced by entheogens. Since Metaphor is the least important of the 4 pillars of Fundamental Dogmatic Truth, and since Metaphor is so thoroughly widespread amongst the topics of Cybernetics, Heimarmene, and Entheogens/Loosecog, and since I needed to severely clamp the length, I dissolved the Metaphor section into the other 3 sections.

Article:
The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death
Main Sections:
The Entheogen Theory of Religion (short) (Entheogens, Metaphor)
The Dissociative Cognitive State (short) (Loosecog, Metaphor)
The Block Universe and Frozen Worldlines (long) (Heimarmene, Metaphor)
Self-Control and the Hidden Source of Thoughts (long) (Cybernetics, Metaphor)

Loosecog and entheogens (as The Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion) are covered by the two short sections, one historically focused, and the other, contemporary cognitive science focused. Metaphor is covered in all sections.

Ahistoricity (of Jesus etc.) is barely mentioned in my article; once you have the great replacement theory explaining what Christianity is all about and what the New Testament means, the ahistoricity of Jesus and Paul becomes unimportant. Allegro would understand. That's why entheogen scholars are readily open to ahistoricity despite Allegro's (rapidly fading) stigma.

o If Christianity was entheogenic, it doesn't need a historical founder.
o If Christianity didn't start from a historical founder, it needs to have been started through some other religious source — and entheogens (with anti-Roman Empire sentiment) fits the bill, fulfills the explanatory role, providing greater explanatory coherence. Attention quickly shifts from the ahistoricity of the founder, to the new, replacement hypothesis: entheogens (integrated with NT as political tract, as I've hastened to point out to everyone).

Group: egodeath	Message: 5451	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: How old is the Entheogen Theory of Religion?

John Rush is right to find mushrooms in hems.

I was the first one to point out the blue-stemmed Amanita-capped mushroom in Mithras' hem in Entheos magazine, while the authors were making a long-shot Amanita interpretation of Mithras' cape. There was no mention of the leg/hem mushroom in the text of the article.

Bottom of my main article http://egodeath.com/EntheogenTheoryOfReligion.htm

Close-up:
http://egodeath.com/mithraism.htm

A reader of the Egodeath Yahoo group is the one who discovered and pointed out to the group the excellent Dionysus 5-mushroom-hem mosaic, which directly supports John Rush. It too is at the bottom of my main article.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5452	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: How old is the Entheogen Theory of Religion?

> My mid-1990s sketchbook shows a drawing of a snake bursting through the block universe

Block with snake coming out of it. Around 1995. Ink-brush on paper.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/photos/album/1605458432/pic/1812904009/view
Image URLs are unstable; the picture number is subject to change.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5453	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

Furst's interviewer (according to Furst's article) said:
"… about the role of psychedelics in religion? At one extreme there are people who agree with the religious scholar Mircea Eliade, who said that the use of psychedelics represents a decadent form of religious practice."

Did Eliade say that the use of psychedelics "in religion" is a recent decadent practice? The excerpts in SOMA show that Eliade wrote that the use of psychedelics *in shamanism* is recent and decadent. I would like to know, if Eliade made such a statement regarding other religious brands, such as whether the use of visionary plants in Christianity is only recent and is decadent. Not that his view on this matter would carry any weight (unlikely), but I'm interested in the history of entheogen scholarship.

Fact-check every insinuation! Particularly with the contested, suppressed, falsely downplayed Entheogen Theory. The official paradigm is a wall of distortion on this subject; every question, every statement, is packed full of misunderstanding, misrepresentation, and effort to diminish and delegitimize the use of entheogens throughout religious history.

First of all, no one ever used drugs in religion. And also, secondly, all the people who did use drugs in religion were heretics and suchlike low-class scum. And, furthermore, hallucinogenic drug plants work too well and too easily at providing a mystic experience, to have been the way mystics accessed the mystic state. Therefore, we see that it is demonstrated that hallucinogenic plants couldn't have been used in religion, and certainly not legitimately.

Before your naive blunder of which you had no inkling, you should've consulted the expert art historians before publishing all those pictures of mushroom trees in Christian art and interpreting them as if they were depictions of mushroom trees.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5454	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Some Christians support entheogen theory and ahistoricity

Christianity is an ally of the entheogen theory and ahistoricity. There is a dilemma for church leaders and intellectual Christians who arrive at the truth first.

Typically, the pews are filled with ignoramuses, narrowly and shallowly read, whose heads, by default, are filled with the magical-thinking, conservative, literalistic mode of thinking about Christianity.

Meanwhile, the pastors and scholars in the church organization follow the truth, reading widely and deeply, and are the first to discover the two pillars of the Allegro theory: ahistoricity of Jesus (if not also Paul and the Church Fathers), and the use of drug plants throughout Western history of Christianity and its context.

These church leaders support the Entheogen Theory of Religion, and ahistoricity, but they are constrained. Congregations and denominations often split between conservative pews and liberal leaders, due to the disparity in levels of education about religion.

It's safe to assume that the smart church leaders support the pair of premises, that instead of Christianity being started by a historical Jesus, it started by visionary plant use — and if they are paying attention to my theory, integrated NT as political tract, or NT as social-political egalitarian movement, integrated with the use of drug plants.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5455	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: Graves-Wasson enth theory 1960, Hall 1925, S. 1845

My selected and condensed excerpts from CSP's excerpts from Robert Graves (1962), focusing on Christian origins

Oxford Addresses on Poetry
Robert Graves
1962
http://google.com/search?q=%22Oxford+Addresses+on+Poetry%22+Graves
http://csp.org/chrestomathy/oxford_addresses.html
141 pages – Foreword, 6 essays

Why do paradises follow a traditional pattern, widespread and persistent? The evidence suggests that, originally, a common drug causes the paradisal visions and provides the remarkable mental illumination described as "perfect wisdom."

In the different regions of Mexico where the cult survives, certain religious rules are common to all. Devotees, before partaking of a mushroom feast, must fast, and be at peace with the world and themselves. Whoever disregards these rules may see such demonic visions as to wish they had never been born. The Christian, Jewish, Greek and Babylonian Heavens have a Hell which complements Paradise; and the usual vision is of innumerable demon faces grinning from lurid caverns.

But those who attend such a feast while in a state of grace, report that the mushrooms not only sharpen their intelligence, so that they seem to possess "perfect wisdom," but shower on them what Christians call "the peace and love that passes all understanding"-a strong, non-erotic sense of spiritual comradeship.

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that Paradise cannot be attained except by repentance; and prepares every sinner for the journey with the viaticum, a symbolic consumption of Jesus Christ's body and blood, after asking him to purge his soul by a sincere confession. From what religion, it should be asked, did St. Paul borrow this rite, since it is not attested in the Gospels and is an infringement of the Hebrew law against the drinking of blood?

The Christian sacrament of bread and wine was a love-feast in Hellenistic style. Initiates of the Lesser Eleusinian Mysteries, who had to undergo a period of probation before being admitted to the Greater Mysteries, saw no celestial visions. Presumably, the mystagogues withheld the sacred hallucigenic agent until sure of a candidate's worthiness; he received bread and wine only, symbols of the Grain-Dionysus and the Wine-Dionysus.

The Church has indeed banished the Serpent from Paradise. Her sacramental elements give communicants no visionary foretaste of the new Jerusalem.

The disappointment often felt by Protestant adolescents at their first communion is a natural one-the priest promises more than they are able to experience. I learned only last week from an Arabic scholar, that the root-word F.T.R. means, in Arabic, first "toadstool," then "divine rapture," then "sacred pellets of bread." This points to a pre-Islamic hallucigenic practice of immense age.

Granted, many Christian and Jewish mystics have undoubtedly seen Paradisal sights, but always after a life of intense spiritual struggle; and these often alternate with terrifying visions of Hell. It is now therefore usual to treat mystics as schizophrenics, arresting them and prescribing electric-shock treatment if their enthusiasm has caused a breach of the peace.

The Church herself is apt to discourage a mystic who claims to have seen sights denied to his ecclesiastical superiors; suspecting him, at best, of spiritual pride.

When I ate psilocybe on 31 January 1960, a recording of the curandera's invocation to Tlaloc as Christ gave the rite a decent solemnity. What I had been taught at school and in church proved true enough, though the truth enormously transcended the account.

Around me lay a mountain-top Eden, with its jewel-bright trees, its flowers and its pellucid streams. And I experienced not only the bliss of innocence, but also the " knowledge of good and evil." Most Christians understand this phrase as meaning the power to distinguish right from wrong; in Hebrew, however, it signifies a universal understanding of all things, whether good or evil.

Good and evil alternate in most people's hearts. Few are habitually at peace with themselves; and whoever prepares to eat hallucigenic mushrooms should take as careful stock of his mental and moral well-being as initiates took before attending the Eleusinian Mysteries. The friend who ate mushrooms with us while not in a state of peace watched his hand turn corpse-like and slowly disintegrate into a dusty skeleton.

This peculiar virtue of psilocybin, the power to enhance personal reality, turns "Know thyself!" into a practical precept; and may commend it as the sacramental food of some new religion.

Peyotl, made from the cactus buds, another sacred hallucigenic agent-but, it seems, not in such early religious use among the Mexicans as mushrooms-has already been sanctified by a "Christian Church" of two hundred thousand members, extending from Central America to Canada. The Catholic and Protestant churches can never [sic – self-defeating supposition -mh] of course, accept visions that either peyotl or psilocybin excites as anything but diabolical and illusory.

/ end of condensed excerpts of Robert Graves, 1962

Group: egodeath	Message: 5456	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: The Entheogenic Apocalypse

Correction:

You've got to believe in yourself
Or no one will believe in you
Imagination like a bird on the wing
Flying free for you to use

— Bob Daisley, "Believer"

Group: egodeath	Message: 5457	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Moderate Entheogen Theory harmful, complicit in Prohibition

Caution: Robert Graves takes a harmful, strategically fatal, seriously self-defeating stance in Oxford Addresses on Poetry (1962). Be very wary and careful about holding an irrational, emotional, knee-jerk negative attitude toward the churches. You'd do better to constantly remind yourself that the Church is a friend and a willing ally in entheogen policy reform and entheogen re-integration.

Graves makes these dangerously untrue and deadly self-defeating statements, harmful overgeneralizations:

The Church has indeed banished the Serpent from Paradise. Her sacramental elements give communicants no visionary foretaste of the new Jerusalem.

Granted, many Christian and Jewish mystics have undoubtedly seen Paradisal sights, but always after a life of intense spiritual struggle;

The Church herself is apt to discourage a mystic who claims to have seen sights denied to his ecclesiastical superiors; suspecting him, at best, of spiritual pride.

Peyotl, made from the cactus buds, another sacred hallucigenic agent-but, it seems, not in such early religious use among the Mexicans as mushrooms-has already been sanctified by a "Christian Church" of two hundred thousand members, extending from Central America to Canada. The Catholic and Protestant churches can never of course, accept visions that either peyotl or psilocybin excites as anything but diabolical and illusory.

/ end of highly ill-advised and counterproductive attitudes from Robert Graves; entheogen diminishment fallacies coming from entheogen scholars themselves as is the hallmark of the harmful, Prohibition-complicit Moderate Entheogen Theory

Well actually, Graves even wrote more horrific things that are such catastrophically bad moves, I censored them:

"The Catholic and Protestant churches can never of course, accept visions that either peyotl or psilocybin excites as anything but diabolical and illusory. They may even put pressure on public-health authorities to outlaw psilocybin, arguing that, although the psilocybe mushroom does not make for addiction … and seems to have no harmful effect on their minds and bodies, … the results of long-term dosing are unknown-a permanent schizophrenia might occur. Liquor and tobacco interests would, no doubt, wholeheartedly support the Churches' plea."

Graves is practically begging the Churches to lead the way in Prohibition of entheogens. He could have and should have written something entirely different, something positive, not negative and making a storm of pessimism here like McKenna who revels in complaining about the Church instead of helping it transform into its original, traditional entheogen-based form.

Entheogen scholars *really* need to knock it off with that bad, self-defeating strategy. Graves is practically begging the Churches to lead the way in persecuting drug users and making entheogens illegal. He's blind to the Churches as the strategic ally in drug policy reform — or in 1962, full drug re-integration into mainstream Christianity.

Disappointment felt by Graves and McKenna, upon realizing that the Eucharist was originally drug-based but "later" (supposedly) became non-drug based, initially turns into severe bad strategy of treating the Church as the permanent enemy of entheogens, when actually, that's more like the opposite of the historical truth.

Given that the Eucharist was initially — at least initially, if not also on an ongoing basis — drug-plants, it should be obvious to Graves and McKenna and all other entheogen scholars that Christianity, the churches, are very close to being turned into an ally for drug reintegration into religion, and ending prohibition.

The obtuseness about cultural strategy among first-generation entheogen scholars has cost missed opportunities, such as during the 1960s pop psychedelic era, and has ended up being inadvertently complicit in, or facilitators of, Prohibition. It is incredibly short-sighted to demonize the Church and sling mud at it, when the Church is a likely and powerful ally in entheogen re-integration.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5458	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Allegro Prohibition-friendly; harmful strategy: slandering Christian

Much of what John Allegro wrote is false, dead wrong, misleading, Prohibition-encouraging, and severely strategically harmful. As you read, be very wary about adopting views that are self-defeating and counterproductive. Much of Allegro's writing is a lesson in exactly how *not* to go about activist entheogen scholarship. Allegro harmed the subject of ahistoricity and entheogen origins of Christianity almost as much as he helped it.

Allegro's credibility falls after some of his statements. Allegro is largely right, and largely wrong. Some aspects of Allegro deserve to have been forgotten. We must be reserved, discerning, and circumspect in carrying forward what's true and good in Allegro, while rejecting and filtering out what's false and harmful in Allegro.

In excerpts below, I shifted the emphasis significantly from Allegro, by omitting the hypotheses of cryptography, secrecy, and sex worship factors which are either wrong or of lesser import and are distracting from the clear main thread. This is part of my recommended strategy for advocating the Entheogen Theory of Religion. Allegro desired to emphasize shocking possibilities in the NT in order to forcefully discredit and ridicule Christianity. That is bad strategy and distorts the subject.

To present the positive, true, and constructive aspects of the CSP excerpts, I removed the ill-advised aspects. But ideally, I should also selectively filter the CSP excerpts to show just how negative, harmful, and mis-focused Allegro's writing was — such a discerning presentation of Allegro would reveal him to be as distasteful as Wasson is revealed to be by me, Jan Irvin, and Andy Letcher.

Wasson was great, and Wasson was lame and horrible and creepy. Allegro was great, and Allegro was bent on slandering and discrediting Christianity and sought to portray Amanita disparagingly.

Beware of entheogen scholars or ahistoricity scholars that have a bad attitude, a chip on their shoulder, against Christianity — it's bad strategy and it prevents clear thinking. You must love Christianity, and religion, and have a playful and purely constructive and supportive attitude, to realize and present the most likely to win way of thinking.

Allegro's bad attitude of "Christianity sucks, I'm going to tear it down!" and "Christians were just eaters of foul poisonous mushrooms and drinkers of mushroom urine! They were hiding their sex and drug cult from the authorities" is the worst strategy, the worst attempt to try to understand these subjects, and the least likely to succeed strategy.

My focus on "egodeath", ahistoricity and suspicion that the Church Fathers were all later forgeries, my focus on self-control seizure as the most interesting dynamic, and my focus on drugs equating them with real religion, and my disparaging of non-entheogen religion as bunk, is not driven by hatred of religion, combative atheism, revenge against religion, or glee in tearing down Christianity or Zen Buddhism or Islam.

I positively think that religious myth and experiencing is the most interesting thing, and I'm driven by increasing understanding, and clearing the barriers to accessing the intense mystic altered state, which is the true home ground of religious myth. Real religion is awe-inspiring and fun and playful and is about fulfilling our designed-in capability of transcending the animalistic ego-delusion, very comparable to discovering our ability to climax. Real religion is fun and enjoyable like adult play.

Much of the innovation I bring is innovation in attitude and perspective. This playfulness and positive attitude, helpful for cultural and policy reform, comes through in Clark Heinrich's book Strange Fruit. Negative attitude in entheogen scholarship prevents comprehension, prevents good ideas, and is strategically harmful, and ends up supporting Prohibition-for-profit, and prevents forming an effective alliance with the religions and churches.

The End of a Road: A New Humanism Envisioned
John Allegro
1970
184 pages
Preface, 12 chapters.
Companion volume to The Sacred Mushroom & the Cross

http://google.com/search?q=%22End+of+a+Road%22+Allegro
http://csp.org/chrestomathy/end_of.html
http://amazon.com/dp/B0044BFVLO

http://johnallegro.org/books/the-end-of-a-road-1970/ —
"The Sacred Mushroom book demolished the church's pretensions to moral authority. Why should twentieth-century people owe any allegiance to a fertility myth? What gave a fictional first-century rabbi the right to tell people how to run their lives, then or now apart from a set of generalized "thou shalt nots" wrested from their context and impracticably vague by comparison with real contemporary law codes? It was time for people to stand on their own feet, to close the gate at the end of the church's road, and step out on the road of compassion, responsibility, and common sense."

Allegro wrote:
__________________________

This book is not a post-mortem examination of a moribund Church. I am not primarily concerned with the cult of the sacred fungus, which fully deserved [sic] all the abusive epithets heaped upon its perversions by the Romans when they tried to suppress the Christians. It deals with the end of one road, and the opening up of a new, wider highway for all men to travel.

We shall look to some of the problems now facing mankind and bearing down on us with the dramatic advances in modern technology in a shrinking world, and see how old and inadequate moral sanctions can be revised or replaced by new ones [don't condone or encourage Prohibition! -mh]. We shall discuss how the present catastrophe of a discredited Christianity can be turned to good account through seizing the opportunity for fresh, creative thinking in a society free from the inhibitions of religious dogma.
__________________________

My condensed excerpts from CSP's excerpts of Allegro:
__________________________

At the beginning of The Revelation to John is a clear portrayal of the red-capped Amanita muscaria seen under the macroscopic influence of its drugs:

in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden girdle round his breast; his head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow, his eyes were like a flame of fire, his face was like the sun shining in full strength

This shape is the mushroom. Above ground is the stem bearing on its top the umbrella-shaped canopy, or cap. Amanita muscaria's most distinctive feature is the red canopy flecked with white spots or 'warts', and this fungus is the one most pictured in nursery storybooks as the home of elves and goblins. Before its expansion, it looks like a pigeon's egg half-buried in the soil.

Since it appeared often after storms, they thought that the heavenly deity must have fertilized the virgin by his word in thunder. It was called 'Son of Thunder', a nickname given to James and John, the so-called Boanerges brothers (Mark 3:17).
http://biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%203:17&version=KJV

The Christians and Essenes claimed they were the inheritors of the religion of ancient Israel. The old Israelitish cult and mythology are rooted in the religion of the sacred fungus.

The New Testament is written by mushroom worshippers. Jesus, like Dionysus of the related Bacchic religion, is a personification of sacred fungus, the 'smeared' or anointed, the 'christ'. His story recounted so vividly in the Gospels was never meant to be read as history. Embedded in the tale and in the words of the legendary teacher were the freeing or salvation of the souls of the initiates.

The supreme act of God's self-revelation, the Incarnation, is a hoax. Can Christianity exist without Christ? Is the moral teaching of the New Testament authoritative if its author was only playing with words expressing a mushroom cult? The Church has constantly to remind its faithful that the Creed was not founded upon the Sermon on the Mount but on the Incarnation.

The Church's theologians have always appreciated that the unique contribution of the Faith has been in its adoration of the god-man Jesus, not his teachings. The 'Son of God' is a mushroom, bearer of the 'Word of God'. Does it matter what the Church later preached as the Gospel, if they had been so mistaken about the historical basis of their faith?

The supreme symbol of God's passion for mankind, the Cross, was a representation of the mushroom. Can traditional [what was traditional? -mh] church worship and ceremonial be the same if the processional of priests and servers, headed by a cross, down the nave to the alter is symbolic of the passage of the male organ through the female?

Can the mystic rite of the eucharist, when the body and blood of the Christ is chewed and imbibed by the celebrant, achieve spiritual potency when it is known to be a pale substitute for the fungal drug that raises the perceptive levels of the subject to heights beyond normal comprehension? Can a tasteless wafer and watery wine match the ambrosia and nectar of Amanita muscaria? Can ecclesiastical dogma and authority rest on a misapprehension of their origins?

We have reached a crisis in the affairs of western civilization on two fronts. Just at a time when scientific progress threatens us with over-population and a deepening of the rift between rich and poor, the religious sanctions which might have held the situation long enough for the devising of a long-term solution to the economic and social problems are in danger of breaking down completely in mass disillusionment. On the speed of our reaction to this state of affairs depends the future of mankind.

We shouldn't waste time bemoaning the passing of the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. The common sense that inspired the more practical of their precepts can produce answers to pressing social and personal problems. We have reached the end of a road: what lies beyond, chaos or social harmony, rests in our hands.

The fear of the angels of darkness is fear of the dangers into which drug-taking led the initiates of the mystery cults. The aim of the exercise was the release of the soul from the body so that it could fly away to heaven and experience hallucinations beyond the realm of normal perception. Drug-taking is a dangerous and extremely foolish [sic] practice. Worshippers of the sacred fungus chewed a mushroom which, although fairly harmless in small quantities, can be fatal in large doses [sic]. Three fresh fungi is sufficient to kill a man.[sic]

__________________________
/ end of my excerpts of Allegro

_______________________
http://biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+1&version=KJV

King James:
And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.

NIV:
and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.

Amplified:
And in the midst of the lampstands [One] like a Son of Man, clothed with a robe which reached to His feet and with a girdle of gold about His breast. His head and His hair were white like white wool, [as white] as snow, and His eyes [flashed] like a flame of fire. His feet glowed like burnished (bright) bronze as it is refined in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, and from His mouth there came forth a sharp two-edged sword, and His face was like the sun shining in full power at midday.

The following is my Egodeath condensing of selected Revelation passages, best viewed in mystic, artistic typefaces such as Gothic or Blackadder.
_____________________________

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:

Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand. Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;

And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.

I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches. And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.

His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.

And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter;

The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.

These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks; I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches:

To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive; I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.

Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.

He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death. These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges; I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth.

But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam. Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone. These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass; I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first.

And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations.

The angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created everything, that there should be time no longer: But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.

And the voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again, and said, Go and take the little scroll which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth. And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little scroll. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey. And I took the little book out of the angel's hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.

And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again about many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.

[should also include the entheogenic wedding banquet and eating of the tree and shutting out the non-Elect from the mixed-wine banquet, as I have pointed out in previous posts]

_____________________________
/ end of my condensing of selected Revelation passages

— Michael Hoffman

Group: egodeath	Message: 5459	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: How old is the Entheogen Theory of Religion?

I expected it to be fun to see the first writings about the entheogen theory in the mid-20th Century. But I'm finding the horrifically bad roots of how we got off to a bad, exactly wrong start. Mid-century attitudes are so caustic, so packed with negative presuppositions, so unenlightened, so barbarically benighted! It makes one appreciate political correctness and sensitivity to avoid condoning oppression of the disempowered.

No wonder I loathe the mid-20th Century and have to struggle to see anything but the Dark Ages mentality there — Zombies in gray flannel suits, utterly ignorant of entheogens and the meaning of religious myth, with their way veering off the relevant track, into "psychoanalysis", the denial of cognitive phenomenology, their low point in taking scientistic materialism to the extreme, focusing purely externally on "sentences" rather than cognitive psychology and experiential content.

Mid-20th Century mistreatments "Philosophy", "Psychology", "Religion", and "Mythology" all just suck, and seem to contribute more harm than enlightenment. You really have to sift and filter guardedly to retrieve anything of value from that era of vacuum tube mainframe computers; it's like reading Letcher's publisher-friendly, Prohibition-friendly, status-quo supporting book Shroom and attempting to come away with anything that's positively valuable and true and helpful.

The voice of that era is the aggravatingly, harshly cavalier voice of the snide and overconfident flannel suit-wearing, adult male radio announcer of the mid to late 60s pontificating judgmentally and just as cluelessly, in sensationalist, moralistic, titillating manner, on the Youth of Today, speaking across the huge demographic generational age gap, across the two polarized camps, both equally ignorant about the history of entheogens in religion.

If ever there was a low point, furthest out from enlightenment, it is not now; it was the mid-20th Century: an awkward phase we had to get through. It's frustrating to see just enough awakening to the Entheogen Theory of Religion, to heavily botch and trainwreck it on the first-generation attempt.

Almost all the mid-century scholarship was contaminated by benighted attitudes rife throughout the related fields — whether Wasson, or Allegro, or Graves. You can't engage these authors, who wrote from within such a benighted age, without having all your shields up and filters in place to sort out the good from the horrible that they contributed from within the dark depths of their era, in the midst of the struggles for cultural and mental revolution and emancipation.

We have come a long way since those Dark Ages. Let us at least take away lessons from what the first generation of Entheogen scholars did so wrong, that helped to get us into the present mess. We're now having to mop up the botched mess that they made of it — Graves, Wasson, Allegro, and the Harvard "Psychedelics" writers who all contributed to the massive strategy disaster of not realizing the full Entheogen Theory of Religion.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5460	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Others’ summaries of my Egodeath theory

I might post condensed summaries from others, such as:
Max Freakout
Cyberdisciple

Group: egodeath	Message: 5461	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: Others’ summaries of my Egodeath theory

http://google.com/search?q=%22max+freakout%22+egodeath
http://google.com/search?q=cyberdisciple+egodeath

Group: egodeath	Message: 5462	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: Bk: Pharmakon: Plato, Drug Culture Ancient Athens – Rinella

Discussion among Michael Rinella, Cyberdisciple, and Max Freakout. Interview with Michael Rinella. Hopefully Rinella reacts to my work, since we have communicated about mixed wine.

http://cyberdisciple.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/michael-rinella-pharmakon-plato-drug-culture-and-identity-in-ancient-athens/

I'm tired of reading scholarship that lacks the Egodeath theory; it's a waste of time. The Egodeath theory is elementary and basic; Enlightenment 101. Regardless of which aspects of my Theory you accept, if you don't know it, you're not qualified to write about religion.

Pagan religion in Antiquity was all about personal control agency, fatedness, visionary plants, and metaphor. If you don't know my Theory, you don't know the first thing about Pagan religion and are severely handicapped in trying to write about it. The Egodeath theory is a doorway that marks the great divide between two eras of scholarship and theorizing about religion.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5463	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 30/10/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

It's amusing the reactions of people when they encounter the Egodeath theory which doesn't cede an ounce of legitimacy to the status quo dogma that drug-free meditation is authoritative and entheogens are a simulation, but instead, presents the reverse view with no apology, no bowing to the official reigning dogma.

Meditation — taken for granted as drug-free — is the official religion of the Prohibition era. They fit together hand in glove. Some people find the Radical alternative view of the Egodeath theory emancipating. Some react in shock — they haven't seen the entrenched values cast aside and brusquely, flippantly negated before, as I do.

Shock the Boomers: Meditation is bunk. Real religion is entheogen-based. True, effective religion is through loose cognitive binding agents.

That's a rejection of the entire worldview and counter-religion that my father's generation put into place, against his fundamentalist Christian father.

Boo Hoo to the meditationists — they are not used to such lack of legitimation, from entheogen quarters. No legitimation for you. No free pass any more. Every entheogenist is supposed to respect and praise and affirm meditation. Well *I* don't affirm meditation; I'm not going to go along with the pop mass attitudes just because everyone else does. I'm going to stand back and judge and test meditation compared to entheogens.

The objective, independent, rational conclusion is — after dismissing and ignoring the masses of lemmings — meditation doesn't work, compared to entheogens. There's not the slightest point in trying to sugar-coat this or assuage the meditation advocates, who toe the line under the conditions of prohibition, who are eagerly invited to publish against entheogens, who get every advantage and encouragement from the ruling powers of this fallen world.

I side instead with the sacred meal tradition and entheogens. I throw a wrench into the usual way of dividing the alternatives. A pox on *both* their houses, drug-free Christianity *and* drug-free Buddhist meditation. They call themselves "Jews", but they are the Synagogue of Satan.

ALL YOUR LEGITIMATION ARE BELONG TO US

Group: egodeath	Message: 5464	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 31/10/2011
Subject: Re: The Holy Grail found — Amanita mushroom photos

On Oct. 26, 2011, I found in a book a "panel" showing a Jewish/Christian mushroom tree and uploaded the hazy John Rush-quality photo of the black-and-white illustration. The book's caption: "Early fifth century panel from the church of Santa Sabina in Rome"

Today I found that on Sep. 11, 2011, Cyberdisciple uploaded a thankfully high-resolution color photo of the same panel:
http://cyberdisciple.wordpress.com/2011/09/
http://cyberdisciple.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/xti_9518c-elijah.jpg

Goat eating a mushroom tree:
http://cyberdisciple.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/santasabina_abductionofhabakkuk.jpg

The stub arms indicate that these represent mushroom trees:
http://cyberdisciple.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/img_4773c-christ-women.jpg

It is not very important to find ever more mushroom trees. At some point you have to say:

OK, I get it. Christian art regularly shows psychoactive mushrooms such as in mushroom trees. We can move on now, even if Andy Letcher's Establishment publishers (puppet masters) are hell-bent on making him wave them aside, or ignore them, or use the explicit portrayals of mushrooms as proof that there are no mushrooms hidden in the art, or some other such game move of dubious sincerity and no worth, moves that support a forced conclusion decided ahead of time.

If such publishers are committed to disallowing the Entheogen Theory of Religion, we are forced to write them off: there is no hope of getting them to admit or support the truth of the matter. No amount of evidence could ever be enough to convince those who are intent on adhering staunchly to their inconvincible committed view.

We now are timely in adhering as staunchly to the completely other view, resting on a completely independent basis of thought and treatment of the evidence: the invincible Entheogen Theory of Religion, which is proven, solid ground.

The non-entheogen theory of religion rests on sand and mud covered with misty fog, and if knowledge grows, which is a good bet, the non-entheogen "theory" (which is actually a dull, uncomprehending shrug of "We can't know", accompanied by much fanfare and posturing) is destined to lose credibility sooner or later, as the explanatory power of the Entheogen theory continues to grow and be recognized by more and more researchers in more and more of the many related fields.

Anyone can convert to the Entheogen Theory any time, when they are ready to access full explanatory power and hold in their hands an *actual* theory rather than a lukewarm shrug of incomprehension that is the old "theory", which is no theory.

There are only two contenders:

o The Entheogen Theory of Religion, which has full explanatory power and no disadvantages.

o The non-entheogen non-theory of religion, which has no explanatory power, and has all the many, rich advantages of familiarity and innumerable adherents working away profitably and productively to produce the lack of knowledge in ever greater detail, within ever finer and more precise subdivisions of the lack of understanding of how mystics access the mystic state.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5465	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 31/10/2011
Subject: Non-theories of religion/religious/mystic experiencing

Here are the other theories that are contenders against my Egodeath theory of religion. Like Ken Wilber, scholars theorize *around* religion. Alan Watts gets closer to the heart of peak religious experiencing, by covering personal control insight and psychedelics, and I take that direction to its inevitable conclusion, to the center of the labyrinth, where the youthful self-concept is sacrificed to the bull.

Wow, below are two surveys of the reductionist theories of religion. That's going to be real helpful and relevant. We're not worthy to read these enlightening and "illuminating" breakthrough insights by "the most important thinkers of the modern era".

— Michael Hoffman

Seven Theories of Religion
Daniel Pals
1996
http://amazon.com/dp/0195087259
Publisher: "Seven Theories of Religion introduces a sequence of "classic" attempts to explain religion scientifically, presenting each in brief outline and in non-technical language. It considers first the views of E.B. Tylor and James Frazer, two Victorian pioneers in anthropology and the comparative study of religion. It explores the controversial "reductionist" approaches of Freud, Marx, and Emile Durkheim, then explains the program of their most outspoken opponent, the Romanian-American scholar Mircea Eliade. Further on, it examines certain newer methods and ideas advanced by the English ethnographer E.E. Evans-Pritchard and by the American Clifford Geertz, two of the present century's most celebrated names in fieldwork anthropology. Each chapter offers biographical background, exposition of the theory, comparative analysis, and critical assessment. Easily accessible to students in introductory religion courses, Seven Theories of Religion is an enlightening treatment of this controversial and fascinating subject."

Eight Theories of Religion (2nd Edition! Now includes sociologist Max Weber)
Daniel Pals
http://amazon.com/0195165705
2006
Publisher's blurb:
"Why do human beings believe in divinities? Why do some seek eternal life, while others seek escape from recurring lives? Why do the beliefs and behaviors we typically call "religious" so deeply affect the human personality and so subtly weave their way through human society? Revised and updated in this second edition, Eight Theories of Religion considers how these fundamental questions have engaged the most important thinkers of the modern era. Accessible, systematic, and succinct, the text examines the classic interpretations of religion advanced by theorists who have left a major imprint on the intellectual culture of the twentieth century. The second edition features a new chapter on Max Weber, a revised introduction, and a revised, expanded conclusion that traces the paths of further inquiry and interpretation traveled by theorists in the most recent decades.

"Eight Theories of Religion, Second Edition, begins with Edward Burnett Tylor and James Frazer–two Victorian pioneers in anthropology and the comparative study of religion. It then considers the great "reductionist" approaches of Sigmund Freud, Emile Durkheim, and Karl Marx, all of whom have exercised wide influence up to the present day. The discussion goes on to examine the leading challenges to reductionism as articulated by sociologist Max Weber (new to this edition) and Romanian-American comparativist Mircea Eliade. Finally, it explores the newer methods and ideas arising from the African field studies of ethnographer E. E. Evans-Pritchard and the interpretive anthropology of Clifford Geertz. Each chapter offers biographical background, theoretical exposition, conceptual analysis, and critical assessment. This common format allows for close comparison and careful evaluation throughout. Ideal for use as a supplementary text in introductory religion courses or as the central text in sociology of religion and courses centered on the explanation and interpretation of religion, Eight Theories of Religion, Second Edition, offers an illuminating treatment of this controversial and fascinating subject."

Relating Religion: Essays in the Study of Religion
Jonathan Z. Smith
http://amazon.com/dp/0226763870
2004
I posted a thread about this.

Reviewer N. Dyachenko "andriyd" writes of the worth-reading JZ Smith, who is a theorist and critic of scholarship on religion (meta-level), more than a theorist of religion:

"Jonathan Z. Smith is the greatest and most interesting theorist of religion today. In this book Smith analyzes theories of his famous academic predecessors and voices his concerns with the issues in classification and nomology of religion. Smith is concerned with the ways in which folk psychology affects our perception of "religion" and "religious". He argues that the very concept of "religion" is a second-order term invented by post-Enlightenment scholars and therefore any attempts at defining "religion" should be abandoned.

"Smith argues that historically widely accepted concepts of (for example) "magic" or Melanesian "mana" or even "canon" should be redefined by accurate historical and athropological work.

"In the concluding essay "God save this honorable court" Smith shows that all legal definition of religious are circular ("religious organization is the organization engaged in religious activities") and the idea of religious tolerance is empty of content unless we provide the universal definition of religion. He provides and discusses real-life legal cases such as the one concerning the use of hallucinogen peyote by Native Americans.

"This book will mostly benefit people interested in Religious Studies (particularly History of Religions) or Anthropology, but Smith's clear and lucid writing style, coupled with his playful humor and concern for broader issues can make his writing interesting for laity."

Patterns in Comparative Religion
Mircea Eliade — it doesn't get any better than this 😦
Seven Theories of Religion
1958
http://amazon.com/dp/0803267339
An anonymous reviewer wrote:
"Eliade presents an impressive collection of data from the religions and mythologies of an incredible number of different cultures, organized according to recurring themes: sky gods, agricultural goddesses, cycles of death and rebirth, and so on. It is an interesting resource for the student of comparative religion, but seems to lack a coherent interpretive framework. I'm left with unsatisfied curiosity to know what Eliade believed is to be learned from this collection of parallels. Perhaps his other writings provide more interpretation, but this book (although it contains many interesting "gems") seems incomplete as a stand-alone volume."

Group: egodeath	Message: 5466	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 31/10/2011
Subject: Re: Non-theories of religion/religious/mystic experiencing

Strike stray "Seven Theories of Religion" under Eliade's name.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5468	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 31/10/2011
Subject: Re: The Holy Grail found — Amanita mushroom photos

The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship
Paul Bradshaw
1992/2002
http://amazon.com/dp/0195217322
"It would perhaps be premature to say that a scholarly consensus is emerging, but certainly a growing number of us would now share the following conclusions: That we know much, much less about liturgical practices of the first three centuries of Christianity than we once thought we did. A great deal more is shrouded in the mists of time than we formerly imagined, and many of our previous confident assertions about 'what the early Church did' now seem more like wishful thinking or the unconsious projections back into ancient times of later practices.

"The majority of scholars in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and even early twentieth centuries were generally quite confident that they had a clear picture of the pattern of worship practised in the first few centuries of the Church's history, and especially of the eucharistic rite."

Group: egodeath	Message: 5469	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 31/10/2011
Subject: Mytheme: Chariot steersman

The chariot appears in Greco/Roman and Jewish figuration. The chariot is popular because it efficiently conveys the theme of steering (controlling, governing) the chariot, and thus the idea of: How does your self-control work? What is the origin and source of your self-control power? Do you control the source of your self-control power? Do you steer your ability to steer your thoughts?

Dionysus wears a wreath of grapes, and steers the chariot carrying the abducted and married soul or psyche, Ariadne, in Dionysus' victory procession, in a chariot drawn by four mushroom-tigers. Dionysus (the hidden uncontrollable source of your control-thoughts) holds the reins in his victory procession. Ariadne (your egoic local control agency) passively rides in the chariot.

http://egodeath.com/images/egodeatharticle/HighRes/DionysusVictoryChariot_HiRes.jpg

Sometimes a heimarmene-serpent is under the chariot, as the real controller and the Fate-destined path the chariot is bound to travel along, or the chariot is pulled by snakes such as Triptolemus' chariot, and Saturn's chariot.

http://google.com/search?q=Saturn's%20chariot&tbm=isch

The question posed by the image of the chariot is, Who controls the chariot? A combination of the hidden god, the mortal steersman, the chariot itself, and heimarmene.

Comparable images:
o The seer Balaam on his donkey that stops while on his way to curse the Israelites
o Paul falling off his horse to the ground while on his way to persecute the Christians
o Centaurs (human on top, hard-to-control horse on bottom)
o Basilisk, which is a crowned rooster on top, and a serpent on the bottom
o Quan Yin riding the serpent.
o Neptune/Poseidon's chariot which he steers is pulled by hippocamps: horse on top, serpent on bottom
o Rosicrucians' Invisible College woodcut: man in upper left is wrapped and carried to the hidden controller-God by a snake wearing a crown

Snakes aren't visible in the ordinary state of consciousness, but they pull and steer your chariot along a path to knowledge of God. Snakes are that which is hidden, like Dionysus the normally secret steersman or charioteer, and yet steers and takes you toward God.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5470	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 31/10/2011
Subject: Re: Bk: Pharmakon: Plato, Drug Culture Ancient Athens – Rinella

Michael Rinella holds back too skeptically and conservatively regarding whether Philosophy was entheogen-based, entheogen-saturated, and entheogen-focused — at the same time as presenting and affirming massive arguments and evidence for the extremely common and thoroughly normal use of visionary plants throughout the culture. As if Philosophy might be separate from the rest of the thoroughly drug-saturated culture!

That's skepticism and extreme, unreasonable overcaution to the point of absurdity. At some point, skepticism and doubt becomes irrationality. *Of course* Philosophy was thoroughly 100% informed by entheogen-induced experiencing. It's impossible that it wasn't. Entheogens make you think. Philosophy is thinking.

The entire culture was saturated with entheogen drinking parties, mixed wine, banqueting, trip club burial societies with dues paid in amphoras of undiluted mixed wine.

Get a grip people! Get some plain practical common sense. You think way too much, without an elementary grasp of what you're talking about. Be more of a simple minded person. Go ask a child, an unlettered person, to get a plain, simple view.

It's too complicated and lost in overintellectualizing to assume per Rinella that the culture was filled with entheogens — does he know anything about entheogens? It's doubtful; the evidence (his skepticism and unreasonable holding back) seems to indicate Rinella doesn't understand entheogens — and yet it was possible and plausible for Philosophy to not be inspired and driven primarily by entheogens.

How could Philosophy possibly *not* be entheogen-based, entheogen-drenched? Stop artificially drawing a protective boundary around Philosophy to keep it pure from the standard point of reference for *all* of ancient culture, which was visionary plants, and I emphasize where Carl Ruck is silent — more importantly and to-the-point — the experiential phenomenology that results *from* drugs.

Drugs are not the point. The experience *from* drugs is the point, but Ruck fails to treat this subject and halts at the sheer presence of the drugs, as if that's the end of the treatment of what's interesting and relevant.

*Of course* ancient Philosophy was a direct reflection of visionary plant induced experiencing. How could it *not* be, given the effects of entheogens, and the usage of mixed wine all throughout the culture, and the descriptions in myth and ancient Philosophy? Do you not understand anything about the effects of entheogens? Do you not understand your own arguments and their inevitable ramifications?

Stop pretending as if "Gee, we don't know; maybe even though the entire culture was soaked in visionary plants, it may very well be possible that somehow, Philosophy — exploring thinking and ideas and the mind — was only slightly concerned with the experiential phenomenology that results from visionary plants and is reported by everyone who is initiated and everyone at religious drinking parties.

Rinella's position is impossible and self-contradictory. At some point, relentless skepticism produces explanatory incoherence, self-contradiction, and irrational obtuseness.

If we accept everything else that Rinella presents other than the question of the entheogenic inspiration of Philosophy, we are *forced* to also conclude — as the only coherent, consistent position in his explanatory framework — that Philosophy *must* have been inspired primarily by entheogens. To reject the latter is to produce an incoherent, self-contradicting explanatory framework.

Every aspect of ancient culture was pointedly, emphatically, deliberately referenced to entheogens and — more to the point (beyond the boundaries of Ruck's conceptual universe, into that of Benny Shanon and my own work since 1985) — the experiential phenomenology of the loose cognitive association state, *especially* Religion, Philosophy, Myth, Psychology, Mysticism, and Banqueting.

Shall we declare that Jesus didn't exist but other than that, Paul and the Church Fathers and the Eusebian history are all true? Incoherence! You can't declare that ancient myth and religion and banqueting are entheogen focused, but philosophy was somehow not! Sheer incoherence and self-contradiction, with no explanatory power, is the only possible result of such an exception, such special pleading.

At some point, skepticism about entheogen-inspired Philosophy, while affirmation of entheogen-inspired religion, banqueting, myth, and so on, is as bad and irrational as trying to make Christianity immune from all Pagan influence.

It is special pleading, as opposed to following the plain evidence where it leads in a simple straightforward obvious direction that any child can readily see, where Rinella gets himself confused and would rather be confused than admit the no-brainer: of course Philosophy was entheogen-focused; every other aspect of society was, and Philosophy shows every sign of being no different, but rather, of being concerned with the ideas and experiencing of the mystic altered state.

There is no reason to suppose that Philosophy was somehow magically immune from the common standard point of reference — entheogen experiencing — that all other fields were pointedly keyed to, especially since Philosophy by its very nature is concerned precisely with the kind of things — how the mind works — that are revealed vividly by psychoactive mixed wine.

Enough with the insanity of the Moderate Entheogen Theory of Religion. Quit making life difficult by labored propping up of incoherence and self-contradiction. Only one explanatory framework coheres and doesn't blow itself to pieces in self-contradiction: my Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5471	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 31/10/2011
Subject: Re: Bk: Pharmakon: Plato, Drug Culture Ancient Athens – Rinella

Another example of special pleading: "The Classic Rock band Rush used Philosophy themes; therefore, they didn't and wouldn't have used drugs." Never mind that, for example:

o They have a Psychedelic decorated album of cover songs from late 1960s Psychedelic Rock bands.

o They made their classic albums with lyrics from Neil "The Professor" Peart starting in 1974.

o Canada had some thriving acid scenes in the early 1970s.

o Philosophy is about thinking, and drug users (of "pot and acid", to preserve the cultural context of that era) are referred to as "heads".

o Everyone already knows about their uncontroverted, obviously cannabis-celebrating song Passage to Bangkok.

o In an interview I cited, they say they have used drugs absolutely, all the time.

I don't mean to imply that anyone worth paying attention to has recently made the absurd drug-free Rush claim; I mean that before I provided the evidence, such flimsy and baseless notions were put forth to try to isolate Rush from the thoroughly drug-soaked culture of Rock in the 70s.

Michael Rinella's posture of mild-mannered reasonable agnosticism about ancient Greek Philosophy being specifically entheogen-inspired (as if it's quite possible it wasn't) is about as flimsy and baseless — and, really, ludicrous — as the claims of some out-of-touch Rush fans that Rush of course didn't use drugs, because they are a Philosophy band (which just shows that those fans know nothing of substance about Rush, Philosophy, Rock, psychedelics, or the experiential effects of entheogens).

Group: egodeath	Message: 5472	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 31/10/2011
Subject: Re: Books by Edwin Johnson

Short of doing additional massive research to settle questions, my thinking is presently settled on these useful working hypotheses:

Ideas I'm currently holding with a feeling of gut certainty are listed first. Toward the bottom are listed the ideas that I'm holding with less certainty, but that are highly fecund and useful for generating ideas and seeing potent alternative possibilities.

o Jesus, Paul, and the Church Fathers in Classical Antiquity didn't exist.

o All Church Fathers writings in antiquity are a loose network of later forgeries, such as by monastic scribes, artificially back-projected, over-painted, over-inscribed, interpolated into, and layered on top of the corpus of Classical Pagan writings.

o All Christian images in Classical Antiquity are actually post-Antiquity, or are not actually Christian; eg
"Here's a picture of a donkey. It represents Jesus."
"Here's a mosaic of a man with Apollo's attributes. It depicts Jesus."
"Here's a Chi-Rho. It is the early Christian cross."
"Here is a banqueting scene on a casket. It represents the Last Supper."
"Here is 'B.M.' on a casket. This means a Christian Martyr."
"Here is a magician resurrecting a man from a tomb. It depicts Jesus resurrecting Lazarus."

Through the magical power of Apologetics captions, we can convert the evidence for the non-existence of Christian art in Antiquity, into Christian art evidence for the existence of Christianity in Antiquity.

Per Johnson, the mere presence of proto-Christian elements do not constitute "Christianity" existing yet. Such pre-Christian elements were present in Antiquity, but a suitably familiar kind of "Christianity" was not present in Antiquity; any religion worth the name "Christianity" only came together into a recognizable validly "Christian" form after Antiquity, such as after 476, such as 700.

o Edwin Johnson's findings about the early-modern history of literary archives are correct and reliable: the monasteries in the areas he researched lacked the writings of Paul and the New Testament, around the period we call "1525". This has to be explained and cannot be brushed aside.

o Constantine and Julian never heard of "Christianity".

o The Dark Ages might not have existed — that is, there are only 350 years, not 1050 years, between 476 "Fall of Rome" and the Reformation.

o Christian events that appear to occur in Antiquity actually are occurrences and situations post-Antiquity, such as 825 or 1525, back-projected and re-stylized as if they occurred in Antiquity. For example:

– The egalitarian movement against Roman honor/shame hierarchy arrangement of society was in fact a movement against the Roman Catholic feudal arrangement of 1525, back-projected onto the era of the Roman Empire.

– The Millenarian apocalyptic mentality of Revelation written in 70 actually reflects the mentality of revolution around 1525. Everything in the NT is by-proxy, using Classical Antquity as the as-if context for events of 1525 era, which are suspiciously isomorphic with the first couple centuries.

o Christianity, at least as a New Testament-based, literary entity, if not in liturgical practice, was created around 1525.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5473	From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com	Date: 01/11/2011
Subject: File – EgodeathGroupCharter.txt

The Egodeath Yahoo group is a Weblog sent out by Michael Hoffman,
covering the cybernetic theory of ego death and ego transcendence,
including:

o Block-universe determinism/Fatedness, the closed
and preexisting future, tenseless time, free will as illusory, the
holographic universe, and predestination and Reformed theology.

o Cognitive science, mental construct processing, mental models,
ontological idealism, contemporary metaphysics of the continuant
self, cybernetic self-control, personal control agency, moral agency,
and self-government.

o Zen satori, short-path enlightenment, and Alan Watts;
transpersonal psychology, Ken Wilber, and integral theory.

o Entheogens and psychedelic drugs, mystery religions, mythic
metaphor and allegorical encoding, the mystic altered state, mystic
and religious experiencing, visionary states, religious rapture, and
Acid Rock mysticism.

o Loss of control, self-control seizure, cognitive instability, and
psychosis and schizophrenia.

— Michael Hoffman
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath
http://www.egodeath.com

Group: egodeath	Message: 5474	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 02/11/2011
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

Michael Rinella commits the fallacy of presentism — projecting Modern-era criteria and expectations back into Antiquity — in imagining that it's possible and at all likely that Philosophy in Greek Antiquity might not be very influenced by entheogenic experiencing.

Why do Moderns misread Antiquity as if psychedelic drugs (you know, like pot combined with acid) are not intensively present throughout every department of the culture as the main point of reference? Psilocybe etc. mixed wine was *so* normalized as the routinely given and assumed backdrop context for every area of human activity, that drug use seems to vanish, from the present, late Modern perspective, expectations, and conceptual categories.

Drug use was not an isolated, culturally exceptional, separated, distinct activity. Entheogenic experiencing was thoroughly thematically integrated into every department of life, and was deliberately used as the common point of reference, whereas Modernity — including the presentism fallacy that's characteristic of the Moderate Entheogen Theory of Religion — assumes the ordinary state of consciousness as the normal point of reference instead, and expects each department of life — including drug use — to stand distinctly apart from the others.

Because entheogen experiencing was everywhere, and was the means of unifying and integrating each department of life, it vanished — as if stealth-cloaked — from the Modern radar screen, and is only partly and incompletely perceived by using the Modern era's Moderate Entheogen Theory, because Modern, Tradition-alienated culture expects to see drug use as an unintegrated activity that stands in isolation, in contrast against the backdrop of non-drug, ordinary-state based culture. But that expected contrastive outline shape, delimiting drug use as a distinct activity, doesn't seem to obviously appear, doesn't appear in its full manifest visibility without the Maximal Theory, which expects entheogen use to apparently disappear into its context, fitting in so well — or rather, fitting all fields to itself so that when you look in the direction of drugs, your eyes instead meet the entire culture.

It is precisely as difficult to perceive entheogen use in Antiquity, when expecting to see it as a distinctly bounded area held aside from the others, as it is to perceive Religion, Philosophy, Literature, Mythology, Mysticism, Weddings, Festivals, Burials, and Government as areas that are distinctly bounded from each other.

Far from being presented as an isolated, separate, abnormal area, Entheogen experiencing was treated as the standard of reference that all fields needed to be brought into isomorphic conformance with, as the master template and glue to integrate all these areas together. Entheogens were something sacredly set apart and therefore all other areas needed to be raised up and made isomorphic with entheogen experiencing, obscuring entheogens as a distinct entity or practice.

When Modern-era entheogen scholars look by using the Moderate entheogen theory to attempt to spot their expected outline demarcating the entity of "drug use", that contrastive, delimiting outline they attempt to use as the indicator of the use of drugs is not visible, because it doesn't exist, because *everything* in Antiquity was deliberately placed *inside* the "boundary" of entheogenic experiencing.

The Modern theory looks for a hole in a block of Swiss cheese, constituting the distinct activity of "drug use", but no such expected hole is seen much — only the entire block is seen: the myth-suffused culture of Antiquity and the pre-Modern culture of Tradition. The entire block was equated with and framed in terms of entheogenic experiencing, which sacralized everything and looked back upon non-entheogen experiencing as but the naive virginity of the ignorant, uninitiated, youthful mind of children!

The lack of drug-integrated experiencing was wistfully disparaged as the mere beloved and precious folly of too-fleeting youthful delusion. Non-entheogenic experiencing was equated with the naive youthful delusion of the uninitiated: pretty, beardless Ganymede, who had not yet drunk the cup from the wine-mixing krater (or drunk it only his first few times so far) and been abducted, kidnapped, raptured, raped, overpowered, carried away, and sacrificed by the gods.

It's not that psychedelic drug use doesn't exist in Antiquity, but rather, the boundary between entheogenic experiencing and the "other" areas of life doesn't exist. When all areas of life are cast in terms of entheogenic experiential phenomenology, drug use vanishes as a distinct, bounded, visible entity contrasting against non-drug areas of life.

Entheogen use *is* readily visible and well-evidenced in Antiquity, *if* you avoid the Moderate Entheogen Theory's inherent fallacy of presentism: instead of looking for evidence of drug use shaped as a distinct entity, which it wasn't allowed to be, we must use the visionary speculative theory lens of the Maximal theory, which recognizes the ubiquity of entheogen experiential themes.

The Moderate theory characteristically looks for only the sheer presence of the drug plants themselves, and perceives no more than that, at most. The Maximal theory, as I have defined, additionally thinks and looks in terms of the metaphorical descriptions of the experiences resulting from the drug plants, opening up a far wider and deeper ability to successfully percieve the presence of visionary plants all throughout Traditional culture, by expecting to find the absence of a distinction between entheogenic experiences and other topics.

Moderate-paradigm entheogen scholars are operating from within the assumptions and expectations of back in the Modern era, so they fail to see mushrooms everywhere, and especially fail to see mushroid *experiencing* everywhere (or at all, really), because they only look for the drug plants themselves, and possess no theory to perceive and think about the experiential *effects* of entheogens, which effects are deliberately interwoven consistently throughout every aspect, every idea, in Traditional cultures.

By definition, in a truly entheogen-based culture, there inherently are no non-drug based areas of life; no non-sacred-connected areas of life; so drug use — in the "contrastive", "distinct", and "exceptional" form in which those Moderns looked for it — disappears from their view. There is no expected contrastive edge to distinguish entheogen experiencing from "other", "non-drug" departments of life — a consistently drug-based, sacred-based culture doesn't permit such a possibility as an area of life that's not referenced to entheogenic experiencing.

Only the Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion is capable of perceiving clearly and distinctly, entheogenic experiencing, which vanishes like a chameleon into its surroundings by being so integrated that no matter where you look, entheogenic experiencing doesn't stand out as a separate entity distinct from the backdrop of the "other" departments of the culture. No department of culture was permitted to exist as "other" than, as separate from, and unconnected with, the sacred reference point of entheogenic experiential phenomenology.

Reference: Cornford: From Religion to Philosophy [seamlessly]

Group: egodeath	Message: 5475	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 03/11/2011
Subject: Unsatisfying secondary explanations

Astrotheology, snakes shedding skin, euhemerism, social theories of religion, impressive ceremony, fertility magic… These are trivially, incidentally true theories of religion that are forced and unsatisfying.

They are learned, informed, heroic efforts at explaining religion, but the primary, central trick of successful explanation eludes them, like the game where you have to provide words that match the secret pattern of having a doubled letter:

You can spin lots of guesses at what the valid words have in common but when you hit upon the key, you start easily, effortlessly churning out valid words and laugh at the puzzled, futile efforts of those who haven't yet figured out and hit upon the clear, unequivocal solution – the doubled-letter pattern in the word game, or the "entheogenic experiential metaphor" pattern and solution in the case of theory of religion.

Game players who are yet outsiders, still fumbling in the dark with contrived, "nice try", weakly correct explanations, contribute as much confusion and substitute thematic focus, as enlightenment. Even when they are accidentally close to hitting upon the solution, they remain hopelessly far from the right configuration, as if they can't hear the harmonious tones that are accidentally shining through their garbled, off-kilter hypotheses.

You're so close, but in ways you don't realize; you're uttering some of the key terms of the winning solution, but in the wrong configuration of assumptions and associations.

When following these 2nd-rate, fair attempts, it's like trying to get high smoking stems and seeds, or eating fresh Amanitas, or an unplugged solidbody electric guitar: close, in a way, but really not even close.

Francis Cornford
From Religion to Philosophy
1912
Excerpts from pages 198-199 condensed by Michael Hoffman:
"The initiate was expected to get into a certain state of mind, after first becoming fit to experience it. The means to that state was ritual, dramatic representation. The state of mind is passsionate sympathetic contemplation in which the spectator dies and rises again with the God.

"By these and other ritual means — eating of flesh, drinking of wine — the sense of mystical oneness and participation is renewed in collective emotion. The 'truth' mysticism guards can only be learned by being experienced. To induce that state by collective excitement and pageantry of dramatic ceremonial is the aim of mystic ritual.

"The 'truth' can only come to those who submit themselves to these influences, immediately felt. Mysteries are reserved to the initiate, who have undergone 'purification', and so put themselves into a state of mind which fits them for the consummate experience."

So insightful this type of learned scholarship, and so empty and faux and hollow without recognizing the entheogenic nature of what is "ritually dramatically" ingested. Worthless glass beads put forth as jewels. Such are all the intricate studies and theories of lifelong authors who are hopeless outsiders, endless aisles of packed bookcases piled up toward the heavens. Their State of Knowledge is like Ptolemaic cosmology: lots of information, lots of Theory, arranged in a basic framework that prevents it from making sense no matter the corrective epicycles added.

Group: egodeath	Message: 5476	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 03/11/2011
Subject: Visionary phenomenology vs. visionary plants

"Psychedelic Shamanism is being reissued … because its insights into shamanic hyperspace are as credible as ever and, much to my disappointment, didn't attract the wider readership among psychonauts that I'd hoped for. Interest in those days [1994] seemed more focused on the vehicle than in mapping the realms it takes us to: it is hoped that this latter theme may now assume its proper perspective. I … challenge the reader to compare my hypotheses with their own experience. May such comparison be fruitful in all of our inner work."

— page xxiv, Psychedelic Shamanism, 2nd Ed.

Psychedelic Shamanism: The Cultivation, Preparation, and Shamanic Use of Psychotropic Plants
Jim DeKorne
1994/2011 2nd Ed.
http://google.com/search?q=%22Psychedelic+Shamanism%22+DeKorne
http://amazon.com/dp/1556439997

Regarding "shamanic hyperspace", he covers something like 4D spacetime in the chapter "Shamanic Dimensions", pages 43-50.

"[In 2011] I still endorse most of what is written in these pages [from 1994] — all except for the quaint belief that somehow psychedelics are going to solve the problems of the world: a minor leitmotif still discernible between the lines. (A lot of us, including McKenna, sincerely believed that back in the day.) … psychedelics can't "save" the objective world" page 219

There's a correlation between the moderate entheogen theory of religion and idealistic expectations that entheogens will change the world. Such authors assume that entheogens *weren't* basic in pre-modern Western culture, and that we should add them for the first time, and things will improve. In contrast, my Maximal theory holds that entheogens already were heavily integrated into pre-modern cultures — yet the entheogen-based culture of the Roman Empire had lots of problems.

Carl Ruck and his co-authors strangely focus on visionary plants and myths representing the plants, yet not visionary experiencing and the myths that represent visionary experiencing. Bad books on Salvia present lots of facts but no experiential phenomenology: the worst, atrocious books on Salvia and other entheogens take a stance of avoiding any allusion to the reader or author actually having first-hand experience. Martin Ball writes as an experiential insider writing for other experiential insiders — this, obviously is the sensible and relevant way to write a book worth reading on entheogens.

Benny Shanon presents the ideal approach, Phenomenological Cognitive Psychology of the Altered State, providing a thorough external perspective and a thorough internal perspective, including his own numerous (not 1-time, like bad books) experiences, and interviews people who have had the experience numerous times (not first-timers, like the bad books). The plant-focused writers, such as Ruck and the bad (external-only perspective) Salvia book authors, write so as to give the impression that they have never experienced the phenomenology induced by the visionary plants.

The surface-limited authors provide a million external details, including details of the myths, but everything in the discussion strangely stays within the frustrating outer garden. Every time we might be steered toward the inner experiential realm, we are steered away, back to the surface again, back to the shallow "this mytheme indicates that the plant is present". OK so the plant is present; let's instead move forward into discussing the experiential phenomenology that results after taking the plant, and how myth describes that rather than describing the sheer presence of the plant.

Author: egodeaththeory

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